{
 "id": "george-macdonald/to-my-aging-friends",
 "title": "To My Aging Friends",
 "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": 28,
 "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": 24,
  "n_stanzas": 6,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 43,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "It is no winter night comes down",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Upon our hearts, dear friends of old;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "But a May evening, softly brown,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Whose wind is rather cold.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "We are not, like yon sad-eyed West,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Phantoms that brood o’er Time’s dust-hoard,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "We are like yon Moon⁠—in mourning drest,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But gazing on her lord.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Come nearer to the hearth, sweet friends,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Draw nigher, closer, hand and chair;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Ours is a love that never ends,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For God is dearest there!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "We will not talk about the past,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "We will not ponder ancient pain;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Those are but deep foundations cast",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For peaks of soaring gain!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "We, waiting Dead, will warm our bones",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "At our poor smouldering earthly fire;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And talk of wide-eyed living ones",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who have what we desire.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "O Living, ye know what is death⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "We, by and by, shall know it too!",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Humble, with bated, hoping breath,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "We are coming fast to you!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ]
 ]
}