Thomas Gray
1716-1771

One hundred years after the death of Shakespeare there was born a poet whose fame is almost as firmly established as that of the great dramatist. His reputation, moreover, rests almost wholly upon a single poem, the Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, a few verses containing more noble thoughts expressed in more perfect rhythm than are found in many a longer poem. The pains taken in composing this touching elegy which it took him eight years to finish were characteristic of the author. He was a small, handsome man, of somewhat effeminate appearance, carefully dressed and fastidious to a degree. He was born in 1716, received his education at Cambridge and traveled on the continent with the son of Sir Horace Walpole. He spent most of his life at Cambridge and devoted his time to study. Next to Milton he is said to have been the most learned of all the great writers. His poems are few in number but each one was written and

polished with extreme care. His Ode to Spring, Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College, and A Hymn to Adversity, are his only well-known poems. He declined the honor of poet laureate

of Great Britain, but afterward accepted the chair of modern history at Cambridge. He died in 1771.

Hardly any other poem in the English language is so well known as is Gray's remarkable Elegy. It is a creation that speaks directly to the heart universal, that deals with the emotions common to every human being and depicts those emotions in words every person can understand, to the music of a verse as thoroughly in harmony with the subject as is the atmosphere of the poem.

On a calm summer's evening he seats himself in the yard of the quaint little church of Stoke Pogis. Around him is the beautiful landscape of an English park; great shade trees offer shelter in pastures where cattle graze unmolested. Windsor and Eton are far away and the pensive poet is alone with nature and the dead. At once he begins to create for us the atmosphere of the place, the beauty and the peace that lend enchantment to the hour and lull our spirits into the mood for the quiet contemplation he desires. The curfew rings, the herd winds by, the ploughman nods goodbye and darkness falls around us. As we read the lines we feel the darkness coming on, no matter where we are. The glimmering landscape disappears, our cares fly away and we hear the sleepy droning of the beetle and the tinkle of bells in the distant folds. Over there in the square tower the owl, so rarely molested in this quiet spot, wonders at our intrusion and complains to the moon

of our disturbing presence. With what art has all this been done! In eight short lines Gray has prepared the way so that his quiet meditations. shall be received by us and held for thought. yield ourselves to their influence.

We The only way

one can read and get for himself the best a poem has is to yield himself to the sensuous music of the lines and let his imagination run riot with the details of a scene suggested merely. In what direction will the poet's thoughts tend? In the little church are some rather stately monuments, at least some that indicate position, wealth, and possible refinement. Will these touch his imagination, will these form the subject of his reflection? No, his thoughts are with the people, the substratum upon which society is built, the poor whom we have always with us. It is not within the English church, filled with local pride, where relatives vie with each other in elaborate memorials which have their changing styles as the years move on, but it is outside underneath the everpresent trees, among the moldering heaps, that may everywhere roughen the surface of the universal tomb of man that Gray finds his inspiration. And as for so many of us the turf somewhere heaves, as for most of us some dear one lies forever at rest in his narrow cell, we turn willingly from the pomp of mural tablet or sculptured bust to linger with the rude forefathers of the hamlet.

With appropriate atmosphere around us and our sympathies enlisted for the people of whom he writes, the poet gives us glimpses of their life; the customary sounds of a rural morning, the evening pleasures, the daytime labors; none of these shall move them more.

Acquainted now with the class of people whose virtues the poet is to sing, we are in the mood for his protest against the ambition which would view with contempt their simple life, or the wealth so proud of its own display as to look with scorn on the poor and humble.

The next stanza is one of those general statements, those gems of thought which so often sparkle as a bright stone in appropriate setting. The titled noble, the powerful of earth, the most beautiful person, the wealthiest, all must die. Such the thought: "All that live will share thy fate." It is a thought we all have had repeatedly, but whoever clothed it in such fitting words?

Returning to the special subject of his contemplation, he deprecates in the proud any feeling that blame should rest upon these poor for having no memorial in the aisles of some great cathedral, for no urn inscribed with the story of the dead, no bust so beautiful as to seem endowed with life, no honor however great, no flattery however sincere can call life back, can "soothe the dull, cold ear of Death." And moreover in this neglected

graveyard are perhaps some who might have written inspired poetry, or ruled kingdoms, if they could have been educated and had not been repressed by the stupefying influence of poverty. Then we are given another stanza of application as wide as the world, a generalization as beautiful as the language can make it. Placed naturally in the poem the stanza is complete and perfect in itself, another gracefully figurative expression of a well-known truth. This makes it the frequently quoted stanza it is. But there is no break in the unity of thought for the very next stanza calls to our minds the fact that some villager now lying before us may have withstood the oppression of some titled landlord with the same fearlessness that John Hampden withstood the tyrannical measures of Charles I of England, or that here may be a soul as keenly attuned to the music of poetry as was Milton's, some person as roughly and sturdily powerful as the famous Cromwell who overthrew Charles I and established the Protectorate.

Their lot forbade all these things, forbade them to gain honor in the senate, to despise threats of pain and ruin, to make the land prosperous, to find fame in the national house. But though their lot was hard in this respect and gave them little opportunity for the exercise of their virtues it confined their vices and forbade the hideous slaughter of him who seeks to conquer a kingdom;