{
 "id": "george-macdonald/to-aurelio-saffi",
 "title": "To Aurelio Saffi",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "George MacDonald",
 "poet_slug": "george-macdonald",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "A Hidden Life and Other Poems",
 "book_slug": "a-hidden-life-and-other-poems",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": null,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1864,
  "venue": "A Hidden Life and Other Poems (1864)",
  "note": "Taken from the 1864 volume A Hidden Life and Other Poems, which is the printing this text derives from rather than the poem's first appearance: the same poems stand at the same page numbers in MacDonald's Poems (London, 1857), so an earlier printing is known and 1864 is not it. Whether the 1857 volume or a periodical printed the poem first has not been established here.",
  "uncertain": true,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_N7tfAAAAMAAJ",
   "https://archive.org/details/hiddenlifeandoth00macduoft",
   "https://archive.org/metadata/hiddenlifeandoth00macduoft"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/george-macdonald_poetry",
  "file": "poetry.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1953",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/8949",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/9543",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/9984",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10578",
   "https://archive.org/details/bookofstrifeinfo00macd",
   "https://archive.org/details/discipleandothe02macdgoog",
   "https://archive.org/details/hiddenlifeandoth00macduoft",
   "https://archive.org/details/discipleandothe02macdgoog",
   "https://archive.org/details/rampolli00macd",
   "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/102955776",
   "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/011821572"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-20"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 16,
  "n_stanzas": 4,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 40,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "To God and man be simply true;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Do as thou hast been wont to do;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Bring out thy treasures, old and new⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Mean all the same when said to you.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I love thee: thou art calm and strong;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Firm in the right, mild to the wrong;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thy heart, in every raging throng,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A chamber shut for prayer and song.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Defeat thou know’st not, canst not know,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Although thy aims so lofty go",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They need as long to root and grow",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As infant hills to reach the snow.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Press on and prosper, holy friend!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I, weak and ignorant, would lend",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A voice, thee, strong and wise, to send",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Prospering onward without end.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}