{
 "id": "matthew-arnold/poor-matthias",
 "title": "Poor Matthias",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Matthew Arnold",
 "poet_slug": "matthew-arnold",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Poems",
 "book_slug": "poems-1885",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 3,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1885,
  "venue": "Poems (1885)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/02652295.5119.emory.edu",
   "https://archive.org/details/02652295.5120.emory.edu",
   "https://archive.org/details/02652295.5121.emory.edu"
  ]
 },
 "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",
  "corrections": [
   {
    "line": 154,
    "was": "Stol’n from Aristophanes!57",
    "now": "Stol’n from Aristophanes!",
    "why": "A Standard Ebooks endnote marker (<a epub:type=\"noteref\">) carried into the text by extraction; not present on the printed page.",
    "checked_against": "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/27739",
    "date": "2026-08-12"
   }
  ]
 },
 "stats": {
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  "n_stanzas": 10,
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  [
   {
    "text": "Poor Matthias!⁠—Found him lying",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Fall’n beneath his perch and dying?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Found him stiff, you say, though warm⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "All convulsed his little form?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Poor canary! many a year",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Well he knew his mistress dear;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Now in vain you call his name,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Vainly raise his rigid frame,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Vainly warm him in your breast,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Vainly kiss his golden crest,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Smooth his ruffled plumage fine,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Touch his trembling beak with wine.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "One more gasp⁠—it is the end!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Dead and mute our tiny friend!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "—Songster thou of many a year,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Now thy mistress brings thee here,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Says, it fits that I rehearse,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Tribute due to thee, a verse,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Meed for daily song of yore",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Silent now for evermore.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Poor Matthias! Wouldst thou have",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "More than pity? claim’st a stave?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "—Friends more near us than a bird",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "We dismiss’d without a word.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Rover, with the good brown head,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Great Atossa, they are dead;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Dead, and neither prose nor rhyme",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Tells the praises of their prime.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thou didst know them old and grey,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Know them in their sad decay.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thou hast seen Atossa sage",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Sit for hours beside thy cage;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thou wouldst chirp, thou foolish bird,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Flutter, chirp⁠—she never stirr’d!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "What were now these toys to her?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Down she sank amid her fur;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Eyed thee with a soul resign’d⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And thou deemedst cats were kind!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "—Cruel, but composed and bland,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Dumb, inscrutable and grand,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So Tiberius might have sat,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Had Tiberius been a cat.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Rover died⁠—Atossa too.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Less than they to us are you!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nearer human were their powers,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Closer knit their life with ours.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Hands had stroked them, which are cold,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Now for years, in churchyard mould;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Comrades of our past were they,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of that unreturning day.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Changed and aging, they and we",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Dwelt, it seem’d, in sympathy.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Alway from their presence broke",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Somewhat which remembrance woke",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of the loved, the lost, the young⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Yet they died, and died unsung.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Geist came next, our little friend;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Geist had verse to mourn his end.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Yes, but that enforcement strong",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Which compell’d for Geist a song⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "All that gay courageous cheer,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "All that human pathos dear;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Soul-fed eyes with suffering worn,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Pain heroically borne,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Faithful love in depth divine⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Poor Matthias, were they thine?",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Max and Kaiser we to-day",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Greet upon the lawn at play;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Max a dachshund without blot⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Kaiser should be, but is not.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Max, with shining yellow coat,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Prinking ears and dewlap throat⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Kaiser, with his collie face,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Penitent for want of race.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "—Which may be the first to die,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Vain to augur, they or I!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But, as age comes on, I know,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Poet’s fire gets faint and low;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "If so be that travel they",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "First the inevitable way,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Much I doubt if they shall have",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Dirge from me to crown their grave.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Yet, poor bird, thy tiny corse",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Moves me, somehow, to remorse;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Something haunts my conscience, brings",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Sad, compunctious visitings.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Other favourites, dwelling here,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Open lived to us, and near;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Well we knew when they were glad,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Plain we saw if they were sad,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Joy’d with them when they were gay,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Soothed them in their last decay;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Sympathy could feel and show",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Both in weal of theirs and woe.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Birds, companions more unknown,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Live beside us, but alone;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Finding not, do all they can,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Passage from their souls to man.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Kindness we bestow, and praise,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Laud their plumage, greet their lays;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Still, beneath their feather’d breast,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Stirs a history unexpress’d.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Wishes there, and feelings strong,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Incommunicably throng;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "What they want, we cannot guess,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Fail to track their deep distress⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Dull look on when death is nigh,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Note no change, and let them die.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Poor Matthias! couldst thou speak,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "What a tale of thy last week!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Every morning did we pay",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Stupid salutations gay,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Suited well to health, but how",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Mocking, how incongruous now!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Cake we offer’d, sugar, seed,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Never doubtful of thy need;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Praised, perhaps, thy courteous eye,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Praised thy golden livery.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Gravely thou the while, poor dear!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Sat’st upon thy perch to hear,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Fixing with a mute regard",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Us, thy human keepers hard,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Troubling, with our chatter vain,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Ebb of life, and mortal pain⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Us, unable to divine",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Our companion’s dying sign,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or o’erpass the severing sea",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Set betwixt ourselves and thee,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Till the sand thy feathers smirch",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Fallen dying off thy perch!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Was it, as the Grecian sings,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Birds were born the first of things,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Before the sun, before the wind,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Before the gods, before mankind,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Airy, ante-mundane throng⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Witness their unworldly song!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Proof they give, too, primal powers,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of a prescience more than ours⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Teach us, while they come and go,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When to sail, and when to sow.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Cuckoo calling from the hill,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Swallow skimming by the mill,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Swallows trooping in the sedge,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Starlings swirling from the hedge,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Mark the seasons, map our year,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As they show and disappear.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But, with all this travail sage",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Brought from that anterior age,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Goes an unreversed decree",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Whereby strange are they and we;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Making want of theirs, and plan,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Indiscernible by man.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "No, away with tales like these",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Stol’n from Aristophanes!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Does it, if we miss your mind,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Prove us so remote in kind?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Birds! we but repeat on you",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "What amongst ourselves we do.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Somewhat more or somewhat less,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "’Tis the same unskilfulness.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "What you feel, escapes our ken⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Know we more our fellow men?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Human suffering at our side,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Ah, like yours is undescried!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Human longings, human fears,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Miss our eyes and miss our ears.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Little helping, wounding much,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Dull of heart, and hard of touch,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Brother man’s despairing sign",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who may trust us to divine?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who assure us, sundering powers",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Stand not ’twixt his soul and ours?",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Poor Matthias! See, thy end",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "What a lesson doth it lend!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For that lesson thou shalt have,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Dead canary bird, a stave!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Telling how, one stormy day,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Stress of gale and showers of spray",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Drove my daughter small and me",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Inland from the rocks and sea.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Driv’n inshore, we follow down",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Ancient streets of Hastings town⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Slowly thread them⁠—when behold,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "French canary-merchant old",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Shepherding his flock of gold",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In a low dim-lighted pen",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Scann’d of tramps and fishermen!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "There a bird, high-coloured, fat,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Proud of port, though something squat⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Pursy, play’d-out Philistine⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Dazzled Nelly’s youthful eyne.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But, far in, obscure, there stirr’d",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "On his perch a sprightlier bird,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Courteous-eyed, erect and slim;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And I whisper’d: “Fix on him!”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Home we brought him, young and fair,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Songs to trill in Surrey air.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Here Matthias sang his fill,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Saw the cedars of Pains Hill;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Here he pour’d his little soul,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Heard the murmur of the Mole.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Eight in number now the years",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He hath pleased our eyes and ears;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Other favourites he hath known",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Go, and now himself is gone.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "—Fare thee well, companion dear!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Fare for ever well, nor fear,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Tiny though thou art, to stray",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Down the uncompanion’d way!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "We without thee, little friend,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Many years have not to spend;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "What are left, will hardly be",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Better than we spent with thee.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}