{
 "id": "matthew-arnold/the-future",
 "title": "The Future",
 "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": 20,
 "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": 87,
  "n_stanzas": 11,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 46,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "A wanderer is man from his birth.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He was born in a ship",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "On the breast of the River of Time;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Brimming with wonder and joy",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He spreads out his arms to the light,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Rivets his gaze on the banks of the stream.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "As what he sees is, so have his thoughts been.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Whether he wakes,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where the snowy mountainous pass",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Echoing the screams of the eagles",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Hems in its gorges the bed",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of the new-born clear-flowing stream:",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Whether he first sees light",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where the river in gleaming rings",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Sluggishly winds through the plain:",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Whether in sound of the swallowing sea:⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As is the world on the banks",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "So is the mind of the man.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Vainly does each as he glides",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Fable and dream",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of the lands which the River of Time",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Had left ere he woke on its breast,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or shall reach when his eyes have been clos’d.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Only the tract where he sails",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He wots of: only the thoughts,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Rais’d by the objects he passes, are his.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Who can see the green Earth any more",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "As she was by the sources of Time?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who imagines her fields as they lay",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In the sunshine, unworn by the plough?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who thinks as they thought,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The tribes who then roam’d on her breast,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Her vigorous primitive sons?",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "What girl",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Now reads in her bosom as clear",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As Rebekah read, when she sate",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "At eve by the palm-shaded well?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who guards in her breast",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As deep, as pellucid a spring",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of feeling, as tranquil, as sure?",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "What Bard,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "At the height of his vision, can deem",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of God, of the world, of the soul,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With a plainness as near,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As flashing as Moses felt",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When he lay in the night by his flock",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "On the starlit Arabian waste?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Can rise and obey",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The beck of the Spirit like him?",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "This tract which the River of Time",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Now flows through with us, is the Plain.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Gone is the calm of its earlier shore.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Border’d by cities and hoarse",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With a thousand cries is its stream.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And we on its breast, our minds",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Are confus’d as the cries which we hear,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Changing and shot as the sights which we see.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And we say that repose has fled",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "For ever the course of the River of Time.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That cities will crowd to its edge",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In a blacker, incessanter line;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That the din will be more on its banks,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Denser the trade on its stream,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Flatter the plain where it flows,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Fiercer the sun overhead.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "That never will those on its breast",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "See an ennobling sight,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Drink of the feeling of quiet again.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "But what was before us we know not,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And we know not what shall succeed.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Haply, the River of Time,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "As it grows, as the towns on its marge",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Fling their wavering lights",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "On a wider statelier stream⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "May acquire, if not the calm",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of its early mountainous shore,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Yet a solemn peace of its own.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And the width of the waters, the hush",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Of the grey expanse where he floats,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Freshening its current and spotted with foam",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As it draws to the Ocean, may strike",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Peace to the soul of the man on its breast:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As the pale Waste widens around him⁠—",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "As the banks fade dimmer away⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As the stars come out, and the night-wind",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Brings up the stream",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Murmurs and scents of the infinite Sea.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}