{
 "id": "henry-van-dyke-jr/the-pathway-of-rivers",
 "title": "The Pathway of Rivers",
 "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 "book": "The Poems of Henry Van Dyke: Now First Collected and Revised, with Many Hitherto Unpublished",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": 7,
 "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  "venue": "The Poems of Henry Van Dyke: Now First Collected and Revised, with Many Hitherto Unpublished (1911)",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://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/29314",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/43094",
   "https://archive.org/details/poemsofhenryvand00vandrich",
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   "https://archive.org/details/musicotherpoems0000henr_c7v6",
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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": 24,
  "n_stanzas": 8,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 60,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "The rivers of God are full of water,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They are wonderful in the renewal of their strength,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He poureth them out from a hidden fountain.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "They are born among the hills in the high places,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Their cradle is in the bosom of the rocks,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The mountain is their mother and the forest is their father.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "They are nourished among the long grasses,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They receive the tribute of a thousand springs,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The rain and the snow provide their inheritance.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "They are glad to be gone from their birthplace,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With a joyful noise they hasten away,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They are going forever and never departed.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The courses of the rivers are all appointed;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They roar loudly but they follow the road,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For the finger of God hath marked their pathway.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The rivers of Damascus rejoice among their gardens;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The great river of Egypt is proud of his ships;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The Jordan is lost in the Lake of Bitterness.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Surely the Lord guideth them every one in his wisdom,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In the end he gathereth all their drops on high,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And sendeth them forth again in the clouds of mercy.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "O my God, my life floweth away like a river:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Guide me, I beseech thee, in a pathway of good:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Let me run in blessing to my rest in thee.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}