Thy memory lasts both here and there,
And thou shalt live as long as we.
And after that—thou dost not care?
In us was all the world to thee.
Yet fondly zealous for thy fame,
Even to a date beyond thine own
We strive to carry down thy name,
By mounded turf, and graven stone.
We lay thee, close within our reach,
Here, where the grass is smooth and warm,
Between the holly and the beech,
Where oft we watched thy couchant form,
Asleep, yet lending half an ear
To travellers on the Portsmouth road—
There choose we thee, O guardian dear,
Marked with a stone, thy last abode!
Then some, who through the garden pass,
When we too, like thyself, are clay,
Shall see thy grave upon the grass,
And stop before the stone, and say:—
People who lived here long ago
Did by this stone, it seems, intend
To name for future times to know
The dachs-hound, Geist, their little friend.
Matthew Arnold.