{
 "id": "matthew-arnold/to-a-friend",
 "title": "To a Friend",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "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": null,
 "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",
  "corrections": [
   {
    "line": null,
    "was": "To a Friend10",
    "now": "To a Friend",
    "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",
    "field": "title"
   },
   {
    "line": 3,
    "was": "Saw The Wide Prospect, and the Asian Fen,11",
    "now": "Saw The Wide Prospect, and the Asian Fen,",
    "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": 14,
  "n_stanzas": 1,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 50,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Who prop, thou ask’st, in these bad days, my mind?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He much, the old man, who, clearest-soul’d of men,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Saw The Wide Prospect, and the Asian Fen,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And Tmolus’ hill, and Smyrna’s bay, though blind.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Much he, whose friendship I not long since won,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That halting slave, who in Nicopolis",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Taught Arrian, when Vespasian’s brutal son",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Clear’d Rome of what most sham’d him. But be his",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "My special thanks, whose even-balanc’d soul,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From first youth tested up to extreme old age,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Business could not make dull, nor Passion wild:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who saw life steadily, and saw it whole:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The mellow glory of the Attic stage;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Singer of sweet Colonus, and its child.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}