{
 "id": "matthew-arnold/the-youth-of-man",
 "title": "The Youth of Man",
 "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": 17,
 "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": 118,
  "n_stanzas": 10,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 46,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "We, O Nature, depart:",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Thou survivest us: this,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "This, I know, is the law.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Yes, but more than this,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thou who seest us die",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Seest us change while we live;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Seest our dreams, one by one,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Seest our errors depart:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Watchest us, Nature, throughout,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Mild and inscrutably calm.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Well for us that we change!",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Well for us that the Power",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Which in our morning prime",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Saw the mistakes of our youth,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Sweet, and forgiving, and good,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Sees the contrition of age!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Behold, O Nature, this pair!",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "See them to-night where they stand,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Not with the halo of youth",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Crowning their brows with its light,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Not with the sunshine of hope,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Not with the rapture of spring,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Which they had of old, when they stood",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Years ago at my side",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In this self-same garden, and said;⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“We are young, and the world is ours,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For man is the king of the world.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Fools that these mystics are",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who prate of Nature! but she",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Has neither beauty, nor warmth,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nor life, nor emotion, nor power.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But Man has a thousand gifts,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the generous dreamer invests",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The senseless world with them all.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nature is nothing! her charm",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Lives in our eyes which can paint,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Lives in our hearts which can feel.”",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Thou, O Nature, wert mute,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Mute as of old: days flew,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Days and years; and Time",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With the ceaseless stroke of his wings",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Brush’d off the bloom from their soul.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Clouded and dim grew their eye;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Languid their heart; for Youth",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Quicken’d its pulses no more.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Slowly within the walls",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of an ever-narrowing world",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They droop’d, they grew blind, they grew old.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thee and their Youth in thee,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nature, they saw no more.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Murmur of living!",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Stir of existence!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Soul of the world!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Make, oh make yourselves felt",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To the dying spirit of Youth.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Come, like the breath of the spring.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Leave not a human soul",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To grow old in darkness and pain.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Only the living can feel you:",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "But leave us not while we live.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Here they stand to-night⁠—",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Here, where this grey balustrade",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Crowns the still valley: behind",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Is the castled house, with its woods",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Which shelter’d their childhood, the sun",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "On its ivied windows: a scent",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From the grey-wall’d gardens, a breath",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of the fragrant stock and the pink,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Perfumes the evening air.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Their children play on the lawns.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They stand and listen: they hear",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The children’s shouts and, at times,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Faintly, the bark of a dog",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From a distant farm in the hills:⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nothing besides: in front",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The wide, wide valley outspreads",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To the dim horizon, repos’d",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In the twilight, and bath’d in dew,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Cornfield and hamlet and copse",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Darkening fast; but a light,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Far off, a glory of day,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Still plays on the city spires:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And there in the dusk by the walls,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With the grey mist marking its course",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Through the silent, flowery land,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "On, to the plains, to the sea,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Floats the Imperial Stream.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Well I know what they feel.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "They gaze, and the evening wind",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Plays on their faces: they gaze;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Airs from the Eden of Youth",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Awake and stir in their soul:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The Past returns; they feel",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "What they are, alas! what they were.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They, not Nature, are chang’d.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Well I know what they feel.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Hush! for tears",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Begin to steal to their eyes.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Hush! for fruit",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Grows from such sorrow as theirs.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And they remember",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "With piercing untold anguish",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The proud boasting of their youth.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And they feel how Nature was fair.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And the mists of delusion,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the scales of habit,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Fall away from their eyes.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And they see, for a moment,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Stretching out, like the Desert",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In its weary, unprofitable length,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Their faded, ignoble lives.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "While the locks are yet brown on thy head,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "While the soul still looks through thine eyes,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "While the heart still pours",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The mantling blood to thy cheek,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Sink, O Youth, in thy soul!",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Yearn to the greatness of Nature!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Rally the good in the depths of thyself!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}