{
 "id": "george-macdonald/what-the-lord-saith",
 "title": "What the Lord Saith",
 "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": 77,
 "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": 20,
  "n_stanzas": 5,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 43,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Trust my father, saith the eldest-born;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I did trust him ere the earth began;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Not to know him is to be forlorn;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Not to love him is⁠—not to be man.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "He that knows him loves him altogether;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With my father I am so content",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "That through all this dreary human weather",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I am working, waiting, confident.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "He is with me; I am not alone;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Life is bliss, because I am his child;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Down in Hades will I lay the stone",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Whence shall rise to Heaven his city piled.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Hearken, brothers, pray you, to my story!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Hear me, sister; hearken, child, to me:",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Our one father is a perfect glory;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He is light, and there is none but he.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Come then with me; I will lead the way;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "All of you, sore-hearted, heavy-shod,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Come to father, yours and mine, I pray;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Little ones, I pray you, come to God!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ]
 ]
}