{
 "id": "matthew-arnold/a-wish",
 "title": "A Wish",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Matthew Arnold",
 "poet_slug": "matthew-arnold",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "New Poems",
 "book_slug": "new-poems",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": null,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1867,
  "venue": "New Poems (1867)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/newpoems00arno"
  ]
 },
 "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": "2026-08-12"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 52,
  "n_stanzas": 13,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 44,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "I ask not that my bed of death",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From bands of greedy heirs be free;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For these besiege the latest breath",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of fortune’s favour’d sons, not me.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I ask not each kind soul to keep",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Tearless, when of my death he hears;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Let those who will, if any, weep!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "There are worse plagues on earth than tears.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I ask but that my death may find",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The freedom to my life denied;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Ask but the folly of mankind",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Then, then at last, to quit my side.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Spare me the whispering, crowded room,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The friends who come, and gape, and go;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The ceremonious air of gloom⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "All, which makes death a hideous show!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Nor bring, to see me cease to live,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Some doctor full of phrase and fame,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To shake his sapient head and give",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The ill he cannot cure a name.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Nor fetch, to take the accustom’d toll",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of the poor sinner bound for death,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "His brother doctor of the soul,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To canvass with official breath",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The future and its viewless things⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That undiscover’d mystery",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Which one who feels death’s winnowing wings",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Must needs read clearer, sure, than he!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Bring none of these! but let me be,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "While all around in silence lies,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Moved to the window near, and see",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Once more, before my dying eyes",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Bathed in the sacred dews of morn",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The wide aerial landscape spread⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The world which was ere I was born,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The world which lasts when I am dead.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Which never was the friend of one,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nor promised love it could not give,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But lit for all its generous sun,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And lived itself, and made us live.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "There let me gaze, till I become",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In soul with what I gaze on wed!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To feel the universe my home;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To have before my mind⁠—instead",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Of the sick-room, the mortal strife,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The turmoil for a little breath⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The pure eternal course of life,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Not human combatings with death.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Thus feeling, gazing, let me grow",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Composed, refresh’d, ennobled, clear;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Then willing let my spirit go",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To work or wait elsewhere or here!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}