{
 "id": "matthew-arnold/lines-written-by-a-death-bed",
 "title": "Lines Written by a Death-Bed",
 "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": 8,
 "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": 41,
  "n_stanzas": 2,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 47,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Yes, now the longing is o’erpast,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Which, dogg’d by fear and fought by shame,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Shook her weak bosom day and night,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Consum’d her beauty like a flame,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And dimm’d it like the desert blast.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And though the curtains hide her face,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Yet were it lifted to the light",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The sweet expression of her brow",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Would charm the gazer, till his thought",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Eras’d the ravages of time,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Fill’d up the hollow cheek, and brought",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A freshness back as of her prime⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So healing is her quiet now.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So perfectly the lines express",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A tranquil, settled loveliness;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Her younger rival’s freshest grace.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "But ah, though peace indeed is here,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And ease from shame, and rest from fear;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Though nothing can dismarble now",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The smoothness of that limpid brow;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Yet is a calm like this, in truth,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The crowning end of life and youth?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And when this boon rewards the dead,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Are all debts paid, has all been said?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And is the heart of youth so light,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Its step so firm, its eye so bright,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Because on its hot brow there blows",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A wind of promise and repose",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From the far grave, to which it goes?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Because it has the hope to come,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "One day, to harbour in the tomb?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Ah no, the bliss youth dreams is one",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For daylight, for the cheerful sun,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For feeling nerbes and living breath⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Youth dreams a bliss on this side death.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It dreams a rest, if not more deep,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "More grateful than this marble sleep.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It hears a voice within it tell⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“Calm’s not life’s crown, though calm is well.”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "’Tis all perhaps which man acquires:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But ’tis not what our youth desires.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}