{
 "id": "matthew-arnold/morality",
 "title": "Morality",
 "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": 18,
 "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": 36,
  "n_stanzas": 6,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 45,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "We cannot kindle when we will",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The fire which in the heart resides,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The spirit bloweth and is still,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In mystery our soul abides:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But tasks in hours of insight will’d",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Can be through hours of gloom fulfill’d.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "With aching hands and bleeding feet",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "We dig and heap, lay stone on stone;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "We bear the burden and the heat",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of the long day, and wish ’twere done.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Not till the hours of light return",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "All we have built do we discern.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Then, when the clouds are off the soul,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When thou dost bask in Nature’s eye,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Ask, how she view’d thy self-control,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thy struggling task’d morality.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nature, whose free, light, cheerful air,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Oft made thee, in thy gloom, despair.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And she, whose censure thou dost dread,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Whose eye thou wast afraid to seek,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "See, on her face a glow is spread,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A strong emotion on her cheek.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“Ah, child,” she cries, “that strife divine⁠—",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Whence was it, for it is not mine?",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "“There is no effort on my brow⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I do not strive, I do not weep.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I rush with the swift spheres, and glow",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In joy, and when I will, I sleep.⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Yet that severe, that earnest air,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "I saw, I felt it once⁠—but where?",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "“I knew not yet the gauge of Time,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nor wore the manacles of Space.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I felt it in some other clime⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I saw it in some other place.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "—’Twas when the heavenly house I trod,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And lay upon the breast of God.”",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}