{
 "id": "matthew-arnold/absence",
 "title": "Absence",
 "ordinal": "VI",
 "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": 5,
 "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": 20,
  "n_stanzas": 5,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 37,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "In this fair stranger’s eyes of grey",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thine eyes, my love, I see.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I shudder: for the passing day",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Had borne me far from thee.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "This is the curse of life: that not",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A nobler calmer train",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of wiser thoughts and feelings blot",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Our passions from our brain;",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "But each day brings its petty dust",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Our soon-chok’d souls to fill,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And we forget because we must,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And not because we will.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I struggle towards the light; and ye,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Once-long’d-for storms of love!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "If with the light ye cannot be,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I bear that ye remove.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I struggle towards the light; but oh,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "While yet the night is chill,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Upon Time’s barren, stormy flow,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Stay with me, Marguerite, still!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}