{
 "id": "matthew-arnold/bacchanalia-or-the-new-age",
 "title": "Bacchanalia; or, the New Age",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Matthew Arnold",
 "poet_slug": "matthew-arnold",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "New Poems",
 "book_slug": "new-poems",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 19,
 "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": 119,
  "n_stanzas": 7,
  "n_parts": 2,
  "longest_line_chars": 41,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [
  {
   "ordinal": "I",
   "title": null,
   "stanza_range": [
    0,
    3
   ]
  },
  {
   "ordinal": "II",
   "title": null,
   "stanza_range": [
    3,
    7
   ]
  }
 ],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "The evening comes, the fields are still.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The tinkle of the thirsty rill,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Unheard all day, ascends again;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Deserted is the new-reap’d grain,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Silent the sheaves! the ringing wain,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The reaper’s cry, the dogs’ alarms,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "All housed within the sleeping farms!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The business of the day is done,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The last belated gleaner gone.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And from the thyme upon the height,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And from the elder-blossom white",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And pale dog-roses in the hedge,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And from the mint-plant in the sedge,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In puffs of balm the night-air blows",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The perfume which the day forgoes.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And on the pure horizon far,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "See, pulsing with the first-born star,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The liquid sky above the hill!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The evening comes, the fields are still.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Loitering and leaping,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With saunter, with bounds⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Flickering and circling",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In files and in rounds⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Gaily their pine-staff green",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Tossing in air,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Loose o’er their shoulders white",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Showering their hair⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "See! the wild Maenads",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Break from the wood,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Youth and Iacchus",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Maddening their blood!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "See! through the quiet land",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Rioting they pass⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Fling the piled sheaves about,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Trample the grass!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Tear from the rifled hedge",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Garlands, their prize;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Fill with their sports the field,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Fill with their cries!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Shepherd, what ails thee, then?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Shepherd, why mute?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Forth with thy joyous song!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Forth with thy flute!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Tempts not the revel blithe?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Lure not their cries?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Glow not their shoulders smooth?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Melt not their eyes?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Is not, on cheeks like those,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Lovely the flush?⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Ah, so the quiet was!",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "So was the hush!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The epoch ends, the world is still,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The age has talk’d and work’d its fill⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The famous orators have done,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The famous poets sung and gone,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The famous men of war have fought,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The famous speculators thought,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The famous players, sculptors, wrought,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The famous painters fill’d their wall,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The famous critics judged it all.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The combatants are parted now,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Uphung the spear, unbent the bow,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The puissant crown’d, the weak laid low!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And in the after-silence sweet,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Now strife is hush’d, our ears doth meet,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Ascending pure, the bell-like fame",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of this or that down-trodden name,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Delicate spirits, push’d away",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In the hot press of the noon-day.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And o’er the plain, where the dead age",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Did its now silent warfare wage⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "O’er that wide plain, now wrapt in gloom,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where many a splendour finds its tomb,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Many spent fames and fallen mights⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The one or two immortal lights",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Rise slowly up into the sky",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To shine there everlastingly,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Like stars over the bounding hill.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The epoch ends, the world is still.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Thundering and bursting",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In torrents, in waves⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Carolling and shouting",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Over tombs, amid graves⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "See! on the cumber’d plain",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Clearing a stage,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Scattering the past about,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Comes the new age!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Bards make new poems,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thinkers new schools,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Statesmen new systems,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Critics new rules!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "All things begin again;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Life is their prize;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Earth with their deeds they fill,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Fill with their cries!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Poet, what ails thee, then?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Say, why so mute?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Forth with thy praising voice!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Forth with thy flute!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Loiterer! why sittest thou",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Sunk in thy dream?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Tempts not the bright new age?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Shines not its stream?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Look, ah, what genius,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Art, science, wit!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Soldiers like Caesar,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Statesmen like Pitt!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Sculptors like Phidias,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Raphaels in shoals,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Poets like Shakespeare⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Beautiful souls!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "See, on their glowing cheeks",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Heavenly the flush!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Ah, so the silence was!",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "So was the hush!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The world but feels the present’s spell,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The poet feels the past as well;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Whatever men have done, might do,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Whatever thought, might think it too.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}