{
 "id": "george-macdonald/were-i-a-skilful-painter",
 "title": "Were I a Skilful Painter",
 "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": 5,
 "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": 40,
  "n_stanzas": 5,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 39,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Were I a skilful painter,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "My pencil, not my pen,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Should try to teach thee hope and fear,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And who would blame me then?⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Fear of the tide of darkness",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That floweth fast behind,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And hope to make thee journey on",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In the journey of the mind.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Were I a skilful painter,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "What should I paint for thee?⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A tiny spring-bud peeping out",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From a withered wintry tree;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The warm blue sky of summer",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "O’er jagged ice and snow,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And water hurrying gladsome out",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From a cavern down below;",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The dim light of a beacon",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Upon a stormy sea,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where a lonely ship to windward beats",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For life and liberty;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A watery sun-ray gleaming",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Athwart a sullen cloud",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And falling on some grassy flower",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The rain had earthward bowed;",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Morn peeping o’er a mountain,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In ambush for the dark,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And a traveller in the vale below",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Rejoicing like a lark;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A taper nearly vanished",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Amid the dawning gray,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And a maiden lifting up her head,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And lo, the coming day!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I am no skilful painter;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Let who will blame me then",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That I would teach thee hope and fear",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With my plain-talking pen!⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Fear of the tide of darkness",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That floweth fast behind,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And hope to make thee journey on",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In the journey of the mind.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}