{
 "id": "henry-van-dyke-jr/the-good-teacher",
 "title": "The Good Teacher",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Henry van Dyke Jr.",
 "poet_slug": "henry-van-dyke-jr",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "The Poems of Henry Van Dyke: Now First Collected and Revised, with Many Hitherto Unpublished",
 "book_slug": "poems-now-first-collected",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 10,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1911,
  "venue": "The Poems of Henry Van Dyke: Now First Collected and Revised, with Many Hitherto Unpublished (1911)",
  "note": "Taken from the 1911 first collected edition. That is the printing this text comes from and the first to give the poem a title, not necessarily the poem's first appearance: the volume's own title page describes it as now first collected and revised, and eleven of these twelve poems had already been printed untitled in Out-of-Doors in the Holy Land (1908).",
  "uncertain": true,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/poemsnowfirstcol00vanduoft"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
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  "repo": "standardebooks/henry-van-dyke-jr_poetry",
  "file": "poetry.xhtml",
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   "https://archive.org/details/poemsofhenryvand00vandrich",
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  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-20"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 18,
  "n_stanzas": 5,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 53,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "The Lord is my teacher,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I shall not lose the way.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "He leadeth me in the lowly path of learning,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He prepareth a lesson for me every day;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He bringeth me to the clear fountains of instruction,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Little by little he showeth me the beauty of truth.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The world is a great book that he hath written,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He turneth the leaves for me slowly;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They are inscribed with images and letters,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He poureth light on the pictures and the words.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "He taketh me by the hand to the hill-top of vision,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And my soul is glad when I perceive his meaning;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In the valley also he walketh beside me,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In the dark places he whispereth to my heart.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Even though my lesson be hard it is not hopeless,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For the Lord is patient with his slow scholar;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He will wait awhile for my weakness,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And help me to read the truth through tears.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}