{
 "id": "matthew-arnold/despondency",
 "title": "Despondency",
 "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": null,
 "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": 8,
  "n_stanzas": 2,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 45,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "The thoughts that rain their steady glow",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Like stars on life’s cold sea,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Which others know, or say they know⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They never shone for me.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Thoughts light, like gleams, my spirit’s sky,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "But they will not remain.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They light me once, they hurry by;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And never come again.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}