{
 "id": "george-macdonald/to-e-g-dedicating-a-book",
 "title": "To E. G., Dedicating a Book",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "George MacDonald",
 "poet_slug": "george-macdonald",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "The Poetical Works of George MacDonald, Volume I",
 "book_slug": "poetical-works-vol-1",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 87,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1893,
  "venue": "The Poetical Works of George MacDonald, Volume I (1893)",
  "note": "Taken from the 1893 collected Poetical Works, which is the printing this text is and not the poem's first appearance. MacDonald gathered and revised for it work published from 1855 onward, and it arranges the poems by its own editorial grouping rather than by the volumes they came from, so which earlier book or magazine printed this poem first has not been established here.",
  "uncertain": true,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/poeticalworks01macduoft",
   "https://archive.org/metadata/poeticalworks01macduoft",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/9543"
  ]
 },
 "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": 12,
  "n_stanzas": 3,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 44,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "A broken tale of endless things,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Take, lady: thou art not of those",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Who in what vale a fountain springs",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Would have its journey close.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Countless beginnings, fair first parts,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Leap to the light, and shining flow;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "All broken things, or toys or hearts,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Are mended where they go.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Then down thy stream, with hope-filled sail,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Float faithful fearless on, loved friend;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "’Tis God that has begun the tale",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And does not mean to end.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ]
 ]
}