{
 "id": "matthew-arnold/the-youth-of-nature",
 "title": "The Youth of Nature",
 "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": 16,
 "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",
  "corrections": [
   {
    "line": 24,
    "was": "By the favourite waters of Ruth.26",
    "now": "By the favourite waters of Ruth.",
    "why": "A Standard Ebooks endnote marker (<a epub:type=\"noteref\">) carried into the text by extraction; not present on the printed page.",
    "checked_against": "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/27739",
    "date": "2026-08-12"
   }
  ]
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 134,
  "n_stanzas": 11,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 49,
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 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Rais’d are the dripping oars⁠—",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Silent the boat: the lake,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Lovely and soft as a dream,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Swims in the sheen of the moon.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The mountains stand at its head",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Clear in the pure June night,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But the valleys are flooded with haze.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Rydal and Fairfield are there;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In the shadow Wordsworth lies dead.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So it is, so it will be for aye.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nature is fresh as of old,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Is lovely: a mortal is dead.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The spots which recall him survive,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "For he lent a new life to these hills.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The Pillar still broods o’er the fields",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Which border Ennerdale Lake,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And Egremont sleeps by the sea.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The gleam of The Evening Star",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Twinkles on Grasmere no more,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But ruin’d and solemn and grey",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The sheepfold of Michael survives,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And far to the south, the heath",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Still blows in the Quantock coombs,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "By the favourite waters of Ruth.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "These survive: yet not without pain,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Pain and dejection to-night,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Can I feel that their Poet is gone.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "He grew old in an age he condemn’d.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "He look’d on the rushing decay",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of the times which had shelter’d his youth.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Felt the dissolving throes",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of a social order he lov’d.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Outliv’d his brethren, his peers.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And, like the Theban seer,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Died in his enemies’ day.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Cold bubbled the spring of Tilphusa,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Copais lay bright in the moon;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Helicon glass’d in the lake",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Its firs, and afar, rose the peaks",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of Parnassus, snowily clear:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thebes was behind him in flames,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the clang of arms in his ear,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When his awe-struck captors led",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The Theban seer to the spring.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Tiresias drank and died.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Nor did reviving Thebes",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "See such a prophet again.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Well may we mourn, when the head",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Of a sacred poet lies low",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In an age which can rear them no more.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The complaining millions of men",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Darken in labour and pain;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But he was a priest to us all",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of the wonder and bloom of the world,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Which we saw with his eyes, and were glad.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He is dead, and the fruit-bearing day",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Of his race is past on the earth;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And darkness returns to our eyes.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "For oh, is it you, is it you,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Moonlight, and shadow, and lake,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And mountains, that fill us with joy,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or the Poet who sings you so well?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Is it you, O Beauty, O Grace,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "O Charm, O Romance, that we feel,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or the voice which reveals what you are?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Are ye, like daylight and sun,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Shar’d and rejoic’d in by all?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or are ye immers’d in the mass",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of matter, and hard to extract,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or sunk at the core of the world",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Too deep for the most to discern?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Like stars in the deep of the sky,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Which arise on the glass of the sage,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But are lost when their watcher is gone.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "“They are here”⁠—I heard, as men heard",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "In Mysian Ida the voice",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of the Mighty Mother, or Crete,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The murmur of Nature reply⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“Loveliness, Magic, and Grace,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They are here⁠—they are set in the world⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They abide⁠—and the finest of souls",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Has not been thrill’d by them all,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nor the dullest been dead to them quite.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The poet who sings them may die,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But they are immortal, and live,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For they are the life of the world.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Will ye not learn it, and know,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "When ye mourn that a poet is dead,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That the singer was less than his themes,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Life, and Emotion, and I?",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "“More than the singer are these.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Weak is the tremor of pain",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That thrills in his mournfullest chord",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To that which once ran through his soul.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Cold the elation of joy",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In his gladdest, airiest song,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To that which of old in his youth",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Fill’d him and made him divine.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Hardly his voice at its best",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Gives us a sense of the awe,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The vastness, the grandeur, the gloom",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of the unlit gulf of himself.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "“Ye know not yourselves⁠—and your bards,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The clearest, the best, who have read",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Most in themselves, have beheld",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Less than they left unreveal’d.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Ye express not yourselves⁠—can ye make",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With marble, with colour, with word,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "What charm’d you in others re-live?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Can thy pencil, O Artist, restore",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The figure, the bloom of thy love,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As she was in her morning of spring?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Canst thou paint the ineffable smile",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of her eyes as they rested on thine?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Can the image of life have the glow,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The motion of life itself?",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "“Yourselves and your fellows ye know not⁠—and me",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The Mateless, the One, will ye know?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Will ye scan me, and read me, and tell",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of the thoughts that ferment in my breast,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "My longing, my sadness, my joy?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Will ye claim for your great ones the gift",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To have render’d the gleam of my skies,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To have echoed the moan of my seas,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Utter’d the voice of my hills?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When your great ones depart, will ye say⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "All things have suffer’d a loss⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nature is hid in their grave?",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "“Race after race, man after man,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Have dream’d that my secret was theirs,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Have thought that I liv’d but for them,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That they were my glory and joy.⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They are dust, they are chang’d, they are gone.⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I remain.”",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ]
 ]
}