{
 "id": "henry-van-dyke-jr/to-a-young-girl-singing",
 "title": "To a Young Girl Singing",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Henry van Dyke Jr.",
 "poet_slug": "henry-van-dyke-jr",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "The Poems of Henry Van Dyke",
 "book_slug": "poems",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": null,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1920,
  "venue": "The Poems of Henry Van Dyke (1920)",
  "note": "Taken from the 1920 collected edition. That is the printing this text comes from, not the poem's first appearance: the volume gathers work published from 1897 onward, and which earlier book or magazine printed this poem first has not been established here.",
  "uncertain": true,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/poemsofhenryvand00vandrich"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/henry-van-dyke-jr_poetry",
  "file": "poetry.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/16229",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/16134",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10679",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3525",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/9372",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/29314",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/43094",
   "https://archive.org/details/poemsofhenryvand00vandrich",
   "https://archive.org/details/buildersotherpoe00vandrich",
   "https://archive.org/details/toilingoffelixan00vandiala",
   "https://archive.org/details/musicotherpoems0000henr_c7v6",
   "https://archive.org/details/poemsnowfirstcol00vanduoft",
   "https://archive.org/details/songsoutofdoors0000vand",
   "https://archive.org/details/thyseaisgreatour00vandiala",
   "https://archive.org/details/chosenpoems0000vand"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-20"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 20,
  "n_stanzas": 2,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 49,
  "max_indent": 2
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Oh, what do you know of the song, my dear,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And how have you made it your own?",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "You have caught the turn of the melody clear,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And you give it again with a golden tone,",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "Till the wonder-word and the wedded note",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "Are flowing out of your beautiful throat",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "With a liquid charm for every ear:",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "And they talk of your art⁠—but for you alone",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "The song is a thing, unheard, unknown;",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "You only have learned it by rote.",
    "indent": 2
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "But when you have lived for awhile, my dear,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I think you will learn it anew!",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "For a joy will come, or a grief, or a fear,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That will alter the look of the world for you;",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "And the lyric you learned as a bit of art,",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "Will wake to life as a wonderful part",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "Of the love you feel so deep and true;",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "And the thrill of a laugh or the throb of a tear,",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "Will come with your song to all who hear;",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "For then you will know it by heart.",
    "indent": 2
   }
  ]
 ]
}