{
 "id": "matthew-arnold/the-world-and-the-quietist",
 "title": "The World and the Quietist",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": "To Critias",
 "poet": "Matthew Arnold",
 "poet_slug": "matthew-arnold",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "The Strayed Reveller, and Other Poems",
 "book_slug": "the-strayed-reveller",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 10,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1849,
  "venue": "The Strayed Reveller, and Other Poems (1849)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/strayedrevellero00arno"
  ]
 },
 "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": 4,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 48,
  "max_indent": 3
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Why, when the World’s great mind",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "Hath finally inclin’d,",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "Why, you say, Critias, be debating still?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Why, with these mournful rhymes",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "Learn’d in more languid climes,",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "Blame our activity,",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "Who, with such passionate will,",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "Are what we mean to be?",
    "indent": 2
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Critias, long since, I know,",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "(For Fate decreed it so),",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "Long since the World hath set its heart to live.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Long since, with credulous zeal",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "It turns Life’s mighty wheel;",
    "indent": 3
   },
   {
    "text": "Still doth for labourers send,",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "Who still their labour give;",
    "indent": 3
   },
   {
    "text": "And still expects an end.",
    "indent": 2
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Yet, as the wheel flies round,",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "With no ungrateful sound",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "Do adverse voices fall on the World’s ear.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Deafen’d by his own stir",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "The rugged Labourer",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "Caught not till then a sense",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "So glowing and so near",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "Of his omnipotence.",
    "indent": 3
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "So, when the feast grew loud",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "In Susa’s palace proud,",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "A white-rob’d slave stole to the Monarch’s side.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He spoke: the Monarch heard:",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "Felt the slow-rolling word",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "Swell his attentive soul.",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "Breath’d deeply as it died,",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "And drain’d his mighty bowl.",
    "indent": 3
   }
  ]
 ]
}