{
 "id": "matthew-arnold/horatian-echo",
 "title": "Horatian Echo",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": "(To an Ambitious Friend)",
 "poet": "Matthew Arnold",
 "poet_slug": "matthew-arnold",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Poetry",
 "book_slug": null,
 "book_kind": "compilation",
 "sequence": null,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1887,
  "venue": "The Century Guild Hobby Horse, no. VII (July 1887)",
  "note": "Written in 1847 and given to the Rev. Arthur Galton in 1886 for publication in the Hobby Horse; the headnote in Milford's Oxford edition gives the year of printing as 1887, and the University of California catalogue record for the 1890 Macmillan Poetical Works gives the number and month, citing T. B. Smart, Bibliography of Matthew Arnold (1892).",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/poemsofmatthewar00arnouoft",
   "https://archive.org/details/poeticalworksofm00arno"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
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  "file": "poetry.xhtml",
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   "https://archive.org/details/poemsofmatthewar00arnouoft",
   "https://archive.org/details/poeticalworksofm00arn",
   "https://archive.org/details/inmemoriamawrea00marsgoog"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
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  "last_checked": "2026-08-12",
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 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 36,
  "n_stanzas": 6,
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 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Omit, omit, my simple friend,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Still to enquire how parties tend,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or what we fix with foreign powers.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "If France and we are really friends,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And what the Russian Czar intends,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Is no concern of ours.",
    "indent": 2
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Us not the daily quickening race",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of the invading populace",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Shall draw to swell that shouldering herd.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Mourn will we not your closing hour,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Ye imbeciles in present power,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Doom’d, pompous, and absurd!",
    "indent": 2
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And let us bear, that they debate",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of all the engine-work of state,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of commerce, laws, and policy,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The secrets of the world’s machine,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And what the rights of man may mean,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With readier tongue than we.",
    "indent": 2
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Only, that with no finer art",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They cloak the troubles of the heart",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With pleasant smile, let us take care;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nor with a lighter hand dispose",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Fresh garlands of this dewy rose,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To crown Eugenia’s hair.",
    "indent": 2
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Of little threads our life is spun,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And he spins ill, who misses one.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But is thy fair Eugenia cold?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Yet Helen had an equal grace,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And Juliet’s was as fair a face,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And now their years are told.",
    "indent": 2
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The day approaches, when we must",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Be crumbling bones and windy dust;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And scorn us as our mistress may,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Her beauty will no better be",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Than the poor face she slights in thee,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When dawns that day, that day.",
    "indent": 2
   }
  ]
 ]
}