{
 "id": "george-macdonald/travellers-song",
 "title": "Travellers’ Song",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "George MacDonald",
 "poet_slug": "george-macdonald",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "The Poetical Works of George MacDonald, Volume II",
 "book_slug": "poetical-works-vol-2",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 39,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1893,
  "venue": "The Poetical Works of George MacDonald, Volume II (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/poeticalworksge00macdgoog",
   "https://archive.org/metadata/poeticalworksge00macdgoog",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/9984"
  ]
 },
 "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": 36,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Bands of dark and bands of light",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Lie athwart the homeward way;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Now we cross a belt of Night,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Now a strip of shining Day!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Now it is a month of June,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Now December’s shivering hour;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Now rides high loved memories’ Moon,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Now the Dark is dense with power!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Summers, winters, days, and nights,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Moons, and clouds, they come and go;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Joys and sorrows, pains, delights,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Hope and fear, and yes and no.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "All is well: come, girls and boys,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Not a weary mile is vain!",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Hark⁠—dim laughter’s radiant noise!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "See the windows through the rain!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ]
 ]
}