{
 "id": "matthew-arnold/courage",
 "title": "Courage",
 "ordinal": null,
 "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": 11,
 "container": null,
 "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": "2026-08-12"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 28,
  "n_stanzas": 7,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 43,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "True, we must tame our rebel will:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "True, we must bow to Nature’s law:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Must bear in silence many an ill;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Must learn to wail, renounce, withdraw.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Yet now, when boldest wills give place,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When Fate and Circumstance are strong,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And in their rush the human race",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Are swept, like huddling sheep, along;",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Those sterner spirits let me prize,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who, though the tendence of the whole",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They less than us might recognize,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Kept, more than us, their strength of soul.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Yes, be the second Cato prais’d!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Not that he took the course to die⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But that, when ’gainst himself he rais’d",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "His arm, he rais’d it dauntlessly.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And, Byron! let us dare admire",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "If not thy fierce and turbid song,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Yet that, in anguish, doubt, desire,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thy fiery courage still was strong.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The sun that on thy tossing pain",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Did with such cold derision shine,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He crush’d thee not with his disdain⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He had his glow, and thou hadst thine.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Our bane, disguise it as we may,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Is weakness, is a faltering course.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Oh that past times could give our day,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Join’d to its clearness, of their force!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}