{
 "id": "matthew-arnold/isolation-to-marguerite",
 "title": "Isolation. To Marguerite",
 "ordinal": "IV",
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Matthew Arnold",
 "poet_slug": "matthew-arnold",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Poems",
 "book_slug": "poems-1869",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": null,
 "container": "Switzerland",
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1869,
  "venue": "Poems (1869)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/poemsarn02arnouoft"
  ]
 },
 "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": 42,
  "n_stanzas": 7,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 42,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "We were apart: yet, day by day,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I bade my heart more constant be;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I bade it keep the world away,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And grow a home for only thee:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nor fear’d but thy love likewise grew,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Like mine, each day more tried, more true.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The fault was grave: I might have known,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "What far too soon, alas, I learn’d⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The heart can bind itself alone,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And faith is often unreturn’d.⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Self-sway’d our feelings ebb and swell:",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Thou lov’st no more: Farewell! Farewell!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Farewell! and thou, thou lonely heart,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Which never yet without remorse",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Even for a moment did’st depart",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From thy remote and spherèd course",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To haunt the place where passions reign,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Back to thy solitude again!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Back, with the conscious thrill of shame",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Which Luna felt, that summer night,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Flash through her pure immortal frame,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When she forsook the starry height",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To hang over Endymion’s sleep",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Upon the pine-grown Latmian steep;⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Yet she, chaste queen, had never prov’d",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "How vain a thing is mortal love,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Wandering in Heaven, far remov’d.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But thou hast long had place to prove",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "This truth⁠—to prove, and make thine own:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thou hast been, shalt be, art, alone.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Or, if not quite alone, yet they",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Which touch thee are unmating things⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Ocean, and Clouds, and Night, and Day;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Lorn Autumns and triumphant Springs;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And life, and others’ joy and pain,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And love, if love, of happier men.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Of happier men⁠—for they, at least,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Have dream’d two human hearts might blend",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In one, and were through faith releas’d",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From isolation without end",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Prolong’d, nor knew, although not less",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Alone than thou, their loneliness.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}