{
 "id": "matthew-arnold/separation",
 "title": "Separation",
 "ordinal": "III",
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Matthew Arnold",
 "poet_slug": "matthew-arnold",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Poems. Second Series",
 "book_slug": "poems-second-series",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": null,
 "container": "Faded Leaves",
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1855,
  "venue": "Poems. Second Series (1855)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/poemssecondserie00arno"
  ]
 },
 "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": 16,
  "n_stanzas": 4,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 50,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Stop⁠—Not to me, at this bitter departing,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Speak of the sure consolations of Time.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Fresh be the wound, still-renew’d be its smarting,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So but thy image endure in its prime.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "But, if the steadfast commandment of Nature",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Wills that remembrance should always decay;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "If the lov’d form and the deep-cherish’d feature",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Must, when unseen, from the soul fade away⁠—",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Me let no half-effac’d memories cumber!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Fled, fled at once, be all vestige of thee⁠—",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Deep be the darkness, and still be the slumber⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Dead be the Past and its phantoms to me!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Then, when we meet, and thy look strays toward me,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Scanning my face and the changes wrought there⁠—",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Who, let me say, is this Stranger regards me,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With the grey eyes, and the lovely brown hair?",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ]
 ]
}