{
 "id": "matthew-arnold/geists-grave",
 "title": "Geist’s Grave",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Matthew Arnold",
 "poet_slug": "matthew-arnold",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Poems",
 "book_slug": "poems-1885",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 2,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1885,
  "venue": "Poems (1885)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/02652295.5119.emory.edu",
   "https://archive.org/details/02652295.5120.emory.edu",
   "https://archive.org/details/02652295.5121.emory.edu"
  ]
 },
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  "repo": "standardebooks/matthew-arnold_poetry",
  "file": "poetry.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
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   "https://archive.org/details/poemsofmatthewar00arnouoft",
   "https://archive.org/details/poeticalworksofm00arn",
   "https://archive.org/details/inmemoriamawrea00marsgoog"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
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 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 80,
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 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Four years!⁠—and didst thou stay above",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The ground, which hides thee now, but four?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And all that life, and all that love,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Were crowded, Geist! into no more?",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Only four years those winning ways,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Which make me for thy presence yearn,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Call’d us to pet thee or to praise,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Dear little friend! at every turn?",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "That loving heart, that patient soul,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Had they indeed no longer span,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To run their course, and reach their goal,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And read their homily to man?",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "That liquid, melancholy eye,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From whose pathetic, soul-fed springs",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Seem’d surging the Virgilian cry,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The sense of tears in mortal things⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "That steadfast, mournful strain, consoled",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "By spirits gloriously gay,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And temper of heroic mould⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "What, was four years their whole short day?",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Yes, only four!⁠—and not the course",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of all the centuries yet to come,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And not the infinite resource",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of Nature, with her countless sum",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Of figures, with her fullness vast",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of new creation evermore,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Can ever quite repeat the past,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or just thy little self restore.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Stern law of every mortal lot!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Which man, proud man, finds hard to bear,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And builds himself I know not what",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of second life I know not where.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "But thou, when struck thine hour to go,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "On us, who stood despondent by,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A meek last glance of love didst throw,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And humbly lay thee down to die.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Yet would we keep thee in our heart⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Would fix our favourite on the scene,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nor let thee utterly depart",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And be as if thou ne’er hadst been.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And so there rise these lines of verse",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "On lips that rarely form them now;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "While to each other we rehearse:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Such ways, such arts, such looks hadst thou!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "We stroke thy broad brown paws again,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "We bid thee to thy vacant chair,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "We greet thee by the window-pane,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "We hear thy scuffle on the stair.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "We see the flaps of thy large ears",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Quick raised to ask which way we go;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Crossing the frozen lake, appears",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thy small black figure on the snow!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Nor to us only art thou dear",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who mourn thee in thine English home;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thou hast thine absent master’s tear,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Dropt by the far Australian foam.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Thy memory lasts both here and there,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And thou shall live as long as we.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And after that⁠—thou dost not care!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In us was all the world to thee.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Yet, fondly zealous for thy fame,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Even to a date beyond our own",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "We strive to carry down thy name,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "By mounded turf, and graven stone.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "We lay thee, close within our reach,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Here, where the grass is smooth and warm,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Between the holly and the beech,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where oft we watch’d thy couchant form,",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Asleep, yet lending half an ear",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "To travellers on the Portsmouth road;⁠—",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "There build we thee, O guardian dear,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Mark’d with a stone, thy last abode!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Then some, who through this garden pass,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When we too, like thyself, are clay,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Shall see thy grave upon the grass,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And stop before the stone, and say:",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "People who lived here long ago",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Did by this stone, it seems, intend",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To name for future times to know",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The dachshund, Geist, their little friend.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}