{
 "id": "matthew-arnold/the-better-part",
 "title": "The Better Part",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Matthew Arnold",
 "poet_slug": "matthew-arnold",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "New Poems",
 "book_slug": "new-poems",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": null,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1867,
  "venue": "New Poems (1867)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/newpoems00arno"
  ]
 },
 "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": 14,
  "n_stanzas": 4,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 56,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Long fed on boundless hopes, O race of man,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "How angrily thou spurn’st all simpler fare!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Christ, some one says, was human as we are;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "No judge eyes us from Heaven, our sin to scan;",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "We live no more, when we have done our span.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“Well, then, for Christ,” thou answerest, “who can care?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From sin, which Heaven records not, why forbear?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Live we like brutes our life without a plan!”",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "So answerest thou; but why not rather say:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“Hath man no second life?⁠—Pitch this one high!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Sits there no judge in Heaven, our sin to see?⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "“More strictly, then, the inward judge obey!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Was Christ a man like us?⁠—Ah! let us try",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "If we then, too, can be such men as he!”",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}