{
 "id": "matthew-arnold/rome-sickness",
 "title": "Rome-Sickness",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "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": 1875,
  "venue": "In Memoriam: A Wreath of Stray Leaves to the Memory of Emily Bliss Gould (Rome, Italo-American School Press, 1875), pp. 49-51",
  "note": "Read on the page: the memorial volume's contents list gives “Mathew Arnold — Rome-sickness — 49” and the poem is signed Matthew Arnold at its close. Not one of Arnold's own volumes.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/inmemoriamawrea00marsgoog"
  ]
 },
 "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": 32,
  "n_stanzas": 8,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 42,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "To daily tasks we set our hand,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And oft the spirit, pent at home,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Breaks out and longs for Switzerland,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Longs oftener yet and pines for Rome.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I pass’d to-day o’er Walton Heath⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The coming spring-time’s earliest stir",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Quickened and moved, a happy breath,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In moss, and gorse, and shining fir.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Fortunate firs! who never think",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "How firs less curst by Fortune’s frown",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "O’er Glion fringe the mountain’s brink,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or dot the slopes to Vevey down.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I cross’d St. George’s Hill to-day⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "There in the leaf-strewn copse I found",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The tender foxglove-plants display",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Their first green muffle on the ground.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "They envy not, this tranquil brood,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The cyclamens whose blossoms fill",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "With fragrance all Frascati’s wood",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Along the gracious Alban Hill!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Man only, with eternal bent",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To come and go, to shift and range,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "At life and living not content,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Chafes in his place, and pines for change.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Yet happy⁠—since his feverish blood",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Leaves him no rest, and change he will⁠—",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "When restlessness is restless good,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Still mending, lessening, human ill!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Unwearied, as from land to land",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The incessant wanderer takes his way,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "To hold the light and reach the hand",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To all who sink, to all who stray!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ]
 ]
}