{
 "id": "matthew-arnold/the-second-best",
 "title": "The Second Best",
 "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": 14,
 "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": 24,
  "n_stanzas": 6,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 41,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Moderate tasks and moderate leisure,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Quiet living, strict-kept measure",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Both in suffering and in pleasure⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "’Tis for this thy nature yearns.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "But so many books thou readest,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But so many schemes thou breedest,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But so many wishes feedest,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That thy poor head almost turns.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And (the world’s so madly jangled,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Human things so fast entangled)",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nature’s wish must now be strangled",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For that best which she discerns.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "So it must be! yet, while leading",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A strain’d life, while overfeeding,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Like the rest, his wit with reading,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "No small profit that man earns,",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Who through all he meets can steer him,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Can reject what cannot clear him,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Cling to what can truly cheer him!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who each day more surely learns",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "That an impulse, from the distance",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of his deepest, best existence,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To the words, “Hope, Light, Persistence,”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Strongly stirs and truly burns!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ]
 ]
}