{
 "id": "matthew-arnold/a-farewell",
 "title": "A Farewell",
 "ordinal": "III",
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Matthew Arnold",
 "poet_slug": "matthew-arnold",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Empedocles on Etna, and Other Poems",
 "book_slug": "empedocles-on-etna",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": null,
 "container": "Switzerland",
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1852,
  "venue": "Empedocles on Etna, and Other Poems (1852)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/empedoclesonetna00arno"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/matthew-arnold_poetry",
  "file": "poetry.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/27739",
   "https://archive.org/details/poemsofmatthewar00arnouoft",
   "https://archive.org/details/poeticalworksofm00arn",
   "https://archive.org/details/inmemoriamawrea00marsgoog"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-19"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 88,
  "n_stanzas": 22,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 47,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "My horse’s feet beside the lake,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where sweet the unbroken moonbeams lay,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Sent echoes through the night to wake",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Each glistening strand, each heath-fring’d bay.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The poplar avenue was pass’d,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the roof’d bridge that spans the stream.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Up the steep street I hurried fast,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Led by thy taper’s starlike beam.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I came; I saw thee rise:⁠—the blood",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Came flushing to thy languid cheek.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Lock’d in each other’s arms we stood,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In tears, with hearts too full to speak.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Days flew: ah, soon I could discern",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A trouble in thine alter’d air.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thy hand lay languidly in mine⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thy cheek was grave, thy speech grew rare.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I blame thee not:⁠—this heart, I know,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To be long lov’d was never fram’d;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For something in its depths doth glow",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Too strange, too restless, too untam’d.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And women⁠—things that live and move",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Min’d by the fever of the soul⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They seek to find in those they love",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Stern strength, and promise of control.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "They ask not kindness, gentle ways;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "These they themselves have tried and known:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They ask a soul which never sways",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With the blind gusts that shake their own.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I too have felt the load I bore",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In a too strong emotion’s sway;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I too have wish’d, no woman more,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "This starting, feverish heart, away:",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I too have long’d for trenchant force",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And will like a dividing spear;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Have prais’d the keen, unscrupulous course,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Which knows no doubt, which feels no fear.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "But in the world I learnt, what there",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thou too wilt surely one day prove,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That will, that energy, though rare,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Are yet far, far less rare than love.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Go, then! till Time and Fate impress",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "This truth on thee, be mine no more!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They will: for thou, I feel, not less",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Than I, wast destin’d to this lore.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "We school our manners, act our parts:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But He, who sees us through and through,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Knows that the bent of both our hearts",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Was to be gentle, tranquil, true.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And though we wear out life, alas,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Distracted as a homeless wind,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In beating where we must not pass,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In seeking what we shall not find;",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Yet we shall one day gain, life past,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Clear prospect o’er our being’s whole;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Shall see ourselves, and learn at last",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Our true affinities of soul.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "We shall not then deny a course",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To every thought the mass ignore;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "We shall not then call hardness force,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nor lightness wisdom any more.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Then, in the eternal Father’s smile,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Our sooth’d, encourag’d souls will dare",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To seem as free from pride and guile,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As good, as generous, as they are.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Then we shall know our friends: though much",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Will have been lost⁠—the help in strife;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The thousand sweet still joys of such",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As hand in hand face earthly life;⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Though these be lost, there will be yet",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A sympathy august and pure;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Ennobled by a vast regret,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And by contrition seal’d thrice sure.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And we, whose ways were unlike here,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "May then more neighbouring courses ply;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "May to each other be brought near,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And greet across infinity.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "How sweet, unreach’d by earthly jars,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "My sister! to behold with thee",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The hush among the shining stars,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The calm upon the moonlit sea.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "How sweet to feel, on the boon air,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "All our unquiet pulses cease;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To feel that nothing can impair",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The gentleness, the thirst for peace⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The gentleness too rudely hurl’d",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "On this wild earth of hate and fear:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The thirst for peace a raving world",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Would never let us satiate here.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}