Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard - Thomas Gray

Thomas Gray (1716 - 1771)

Birth: Thomas Gray was born at 41 Cornhill, London where his mother ran a small milliner’s shop. He was the fifth and only surviving child of twelve. His father, Philip, was a money scrivener in the City of London, described by his wife in their separation papers as ‘a scoundrel and a brute’.


Education: In 1725 (9) his mother, at her own expense, sent him to Eton, where her brothers were assistant masters, and where Thomas befriended the young Horace Walpole, Richard West and Thomas Ashton, who together formed the ‘quadruple alliance’, and with whom Gray had lasting, possibly homosexual, relationships. He entered Peterhouse College in Cambridge in 1734 (18), where he was dubbed ‘Miss Gray’. He read widely in Greek, Latin, French and Italian, and developed interests in architecture, mediaeval literature and natural history. He left Cambridge without a degree. The receipt of a legacy from his paternal aunt meant that he had no urgent need to find employment.


The Grand Tour: In 1738 (22) Walpole invited him on a grand tour of the Continent, and on 29 March 1739 (23) they set out, spending time in France before crossing the Alps in November. In Italy they stayed mainly in Florence, but visited also Rome, Naples and Herculaneum. They set off for Venice in 1741 (25), but quarrelled, and Gray continued on alone, staying in Venice for a few weeks before making his way home.


Father dies, first poetry: His father died in November 1741 (25), and for the next few years Gray spent most of his time in London and Stoke Poges, Buckinghamshire, where his mother had retired with her sisters in 1742 (26). At this point began a period of poetic creativity with Ode on Spring and, on the death of his friend Richard West, Ode to a Distant Prospect of Eton College, Ode on Adversity and Sonnet on the Death of Richard West.


Cambridge: In 1742 (26) he took up residence at Peterhouse, ostensibly to read law, but his main interest was always in the history and literature of Ancient Greece.


Renews friendship with Walpole and publishes first poetry: His friendship with Walpole was renewed in 1745 (29), and he became a frequent visitor to Strawberry Hill. Walpole admired his poetry, and persuaded him to publish. In 1747 (31) Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College appeared, followed by Ode on Spring and Ode on the Death of a Favourite Cat, Drowned in a Tub of Goldfishes in 1748 (32). His Elegy on a Country Churchyard, on which he had probably been working intermittently from 1742 (26), was published in February 1751 (35), and was an instant and resounding success, running to four editions in two months. Gray consistently declined to receive any profit by his work.


Continues studies, refuse Laureateship, publishes further poetry: He continued to study at Peterhouse, and by 1752 (36) had begun writing his Pindaric Odes. He declined to become Poet Laureate in 1757. Later that year two of his odes, The Bard and The Progress of Poesy, were printed on Walpole’s press, newly installed at Strawberry Hill. They were criticised as obscure, and from this point he virtually ceased to write imaginative poetry, concentrating instead on private study.


London: He moved to London in 1759 (43), becoming a daily visitor to the reading room of the new British Museum, where he had access to rare manuscripts, and where he made translations of Icelandic, Norse and Welsh poetry. He also produced a certain amount of satirical verse, most of which was destroyed after his death.


Cambridge, Norton Nicholls and tours of England and Scotland: He returned to Cambridge in 1761 (45), where he developed an attachment for Norton Nicholls, an undergraduate at Trinity College, whose knowledge of Dante had impressed him. He made extensive tours in England and Scotland, and, after a visit to the Lake District in 1767 (51), his Journey among the English Lakes, based on notes taken at the time, was published in 1775 (59).


Final publication: In 1768 (52) his poems were republished in a less expensive format, and his poems The Fatal Sisters, The Descent of Odin and The Triumphs of Owen were included for the first time.


Appointed Professor of History and Modern Languages: He was appointed Professor of History and Modern Languages at Cambridge in 1768.


Victor de Bonstetten: In early 1770 (54) he developed a passionate attachment to a visiting Swiss nobleman, Charles Victor de Bonstetten, introduced to him by Norton Nichols. He saw the young man daily, supervising his course of study for several weeks and accompanying him to London on his departure from England.


Death: In 1771 (55) he proposed to visit Bonstetten in Switzerland during the summer, but was struck by a sudden illness, and died after a few days. He was buried in St Giles churchyard in Stoke Poges next to his mother. A memorial was erected for him in Poet’s Corner, Westminster Abbey.

Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard

BY THOMAS GRAY

The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
The lowing herd wind slowly o'er the lea,
The plowman homeward plods his weary way,
And leaves the world to darkness and to me.

Now fades the glimm'ring landscape on the sight,
And all the air a solemn stillness holds,
Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight,
And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds;

Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tow'r
The moping owl does to the moon complain
Of such, as wand'ring near her secret bow'r,
Molest her ancient solitary reign.

Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade,
Where heaves the turf in many a mould'ring heap,
Each in his narrow cell for ever laid,
The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep.

The breezy call of incense-breathing Morn,
The swallow twitt'ring from the straw-built shed,
The cock's shrill clarion, or the echoing horn,
No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed.

For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn,
Or busy housewife ply her evening care:
No children run to lisp their sire's return,
Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share.

Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield,
Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke;
How jocund did they drive their team afield!
How bow'd the woods beneath their sturdy stroke!

Let not Ambition mock their useful toil,
Their homely joys, and destiny obscure;
Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile
The short and simple annals of the poor.

The boast of heraldry, the pomp of pow'r,
And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave,
Awaits alike th' inevitable hour.
The paths of glory lead but to the grave.

Nor you, ye proud, impute to these the fault,
If Mem'ry o'er their tomb no trophies raise,
Where thro' the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault
The pealing anthem swells the note of praise.

Can storied urn or animated bust
Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath?
Can Honour's voice provoke the silent dust,
Or Flatt'ry soothe the dull cold ear of Death?

Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid
Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire;
Hands, that the rod of empire might have sway'd,
Or wak'd to ecstasy the living lyre.

But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page
Rich with the spoils of time did ne'er unroll;
Chill Penury repress'd their noble rage,
And froze the genial current of the soul.

Full many a gem of purest ray serene,
The dark unfathom'd caves of ocean bear:
Full many a flow'r is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.

Some village-Hampden, that with dauntless breast
The little tyrant of his fields withstood;
Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest,
Some Cromwell guiltless of his country's blood.

Th' applause of list'ning senates to command,
The threats of pain and ruin to despise,
To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land,
And read their hist'ry in a nation's eyes,

Their lot forbade: nor circumscrib'd alone
Their growing virtues, but their crimes confin'd;
Forbade to wade through slaughter to a throne,
And shut the gates of mercy on mankind,

The struggling pangs of conscious truth to hide,
To quench the blushes of ingenuous shame,
Or heap the shrine of Luxury and Pride
With incense kindled at the Muse's flame.

Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife,
Their sober wishes never learn'd to stray;
Along the cool sequester'd vale of life
They kept the noiseless tenor of their way.

Yet ev'n these bones from insult to protect,
Some frail memorial still erected nigh,
With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture deck'd,
Implores the passing tribute of a sigh.

Their name, their years, spelt by th' unletter'd muse,
The place of fame and elegy supply:
And many a holy text around she strews,
That teach the rustic moralist to die.

For who to dumb Forgetfulness a prey,
This pleasing anxious being e'er resign'd,
Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day,
Nor cast one longing, ling'ring look behind?

On some fond breast the parting soul relies,
Some pious drops the closing eye requires;
Ev'n from the tomb the voice of Nature cries,
Ev'n in our ashes live their wonted fires.

For thee, who mindful of th' unhonour'd Dead
Dost in these lines their artless tale relate;
If chance, by lonely contemplation led,
Some kindred spirit shall inquire thy fate,

Haply some hoary-headed swain may say,
"Oft have we seen him at the peep of dawn
Brushing with hasty steps the dews away
To meet the sun upon the upland lawn.

"There at the foot of yonder nodding beech
That wreathes its old fantastic roots so high,
His listless length at noontide would he stretch,
And pore upon the brook that babbles by.

"Hard by yon wood, now smiling as in scorn,
Mutt'ring his wayward fancies he would rove,
Now drooping, woeful wan, like one forlorn,
Or craz'd with care, or cross'd in hopeless love.


"One morn I miss'd him on the custom'd hill,
Along the heath and near his fav'rite tree;
Another came; nor yet beside the rill,
Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was he;

"The next with dirges due in sad array
Slow thro' the church-way path we saw him borne.
Approach and read (for thou canst read) the lay,
Grav'd on the stone beneath yon aged thorn."


THE EPITAPH

Here rests his head upon the lap of Earth
A youth to Fortune and to Fame unknown.
Fair Science frown'd not on his humble birth,
And Melancholy mark'd him for her own.

Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere,
Heav'n did a recompense as largely send:
He gave to Mis'ry all he had, a tear,
He gain'd from Heav'n ('twas all he wish'd) a friend.


No farther seek his merits to disclose,
Or draw his frailties from their dread abode,
(There they alike in trembling hope repose)
The bosom of his Father and his God.







An Elegy Written in a Country Church Yard, meditative poem written in iambic pentameter quatrains by Thomas Gray, published in 1751. A meditation on unused human potential, the conditions of country life, and mortality, An Elegy Written in a Country Church Yard is one of the best-known elegies in the language. It exhibits the gentle melancholy that is characteristic of the English poets of the graveyard school of the 1740s and ’50s. The poem contains some of the best-known lines of English literature, notably “Full many a flower is born to blush unseen” and “Far from the madding Crowd’s ignoble Strife.” The elegy opens with the narrator musing in a graveyard at close of day; he speculates about the obscure lives of the villagers who lie buried and suggests that they may have been full of rich promise that was ultimately stunted by poverty or ignorance. The churchyard in the poem is believed to be that of Stoke Poges, Buckinghamshire, which Gray visited often and where he now lies buried.


Graveyard school


Graveyard school, genre of 18th-century British poetry that focused on death and bereavement. The graveyard school consisted largely of imitations of Robert Blair’s popular long poem of morbid appeal, The Grave (1743), and of Edward Young’s celebrated blank-verse dramatic rhapsody Night Thoughts (1742–45). These poems express the sorrow and pain of bereavement, evoke the horror of death’s physical manifestations, and suggest the transitory nature of human life. The meditative, philosophical tendencies of graveyard poetry found their fullest expression in Thomas Gray’s “An Elegy Written in a Country Church Yard” (1751). The poem is a dignified, gently melancholy elegy celebrating the graves of humble and unknown villagers and suggesting that the lives of rich and poor alike “lead but to the grave.” The works of the graveyard school were significant as early precursors of the Romantic Movement.


Elegy


Elegy is a meditative lyric poem lamenting the death of a public personage or of a friend or loved one; by extension, any reflective lyric on the broader theme of human mortality. In classical literature an elegy was simply any poem written in the elegiac metre (alternating lines of dactylic hexameter and pentameter) and was not restricted as to subject. Though some classical elegies were laments, many others were love poems. In some modern literatures, such as German, in which the classical elegiac metre has been adapted to the language, the term elegy refers to this metre, rather than to the poem’s content. Thus, Rainer Maria Rilke’s famous Duineser Elegien (Duino Elegies) are not laments; they deal with the poet’s search for spiritual values in an alien universe. But in English literature since the 16th century, an elegy has come to mean a poem of lamentation. It may be written in any metre the poet chooses.


A distinct kind of elegy is the pastoral elegy, which borrows the classical convention of representing its subject as an idealized shepherd in an idealized pastoral background and follows a rather formal pattern. It begins with an expression of grief and an invocation to the Muse to aid the poet in expressing his suffering. It usually contains a funeral procession, a description of sympathetic mourning throughout nature, and musings on the unkindness of death. It ends with acceptance, often a very affirmative justification, of nature’s law. The outstanding example of the English pastoral elegy is John Milton’s “Lycidas” (1638), written on the death of Edward King, a college friend. Other notable pastoral elegies are Percy Bysshe Shelley’s “Adonais” (1821), on the death of the poet John Keats, and Matthew Arnold’s “Thyrsis” (1867), on the death of the poet Arthur Hugh Clough.


The elegiac couplet of hexameter and pentameter (verse line of five feet) was taken over by Catullus, who broke with tradition by filling elegy with personal emotion. One of his most intense poems in this metre, about Lesbia, extends to 26 lines; another is a long poem of involved design in which the fabled love of Laodameia for Protesilaus is incidentally used as a paradigm. Other elegies observe no set patterns or conventions. In the 18th century the English “graveyard school” of poets wrote generalized reflections on death and immortality, combining gloomy, sometimes ghoulish imagery of human impermanence with philosophical speculation.


Representative works are Edward Young’s Night Thoughts (1742–45) and Robert Blair’s Grave (1743), but the best known of these poems is Thomas Gray’s more tastefully subdued creation “An Elegy Written in a Country Church Yard” (1751), which pays tribute to the generations of humble and unknown villagers buried in a church cemetery. In the United States, a counterpart to the graveyard mode is found in William Cullen Bryant’s “Thanatopsis” (1817). A wholly new treatment of the conventional pathetic fallacy of attributing grief to nature is achieved in Walt Whitman’s “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d” (1865–66).





In modern poetry the elegy remains a frequent and important poetic statement. Its range and variation can be seen in such poems as A.E. Housman’s “To an Athlete Dying Young,” W.H. Auden’s “In Memory of W.B. Yeats,” E.E. Cummings’s “my father moved through dooms of love,” John Peale Bishop’s “Hours” (on F. Scott Fitzgerald), and Robert Lowell’s “The Quaker Graveyard in Nantucket.”