into to elegy

was first published in 1751. Gray may, however, have begun writing the poem in 1742, shortly after the death of his close friend Richard West. An elegy is a poem which laments the dead. Gray's "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard" is noteworthy in that it mourns the death not of great or famous people, but of common men. The speaker of this poem sees a country churchyard at sunset, which impels him to meditate on the nature of human mortality. The poem invokes the classical idea of memento mori, a Latin phrase which states plainly to all mankind, "Remember that you must die." The speaker considers the fact that in death, there is no difference between great and common people. He goes on to wonder if among the lowly people buried in the churchyard there had been any natural poets or politicians whose talent had simply never been discovered or nurtured. This thought leads him to praise the dead for the honest, simple lives that they lived.
Gray did not produce a great deal of poetry; the "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard," however, has earned him a respected and deserved place in literary history. The poem was written at the end of the Augustan Age and at the beginning of the Romantic period, and the poem has characteristics associated with both literary periods. On the one hand, it has the ordered, balanced phrasing and rational sentiments of Neoclassical poetry. On the other hand, it tends toward the emotionalism and individualism of the Romantic poets; most importantly, it idealizes and elevates the common man.
- See more at: http://www.enotes.com/topics/elegy-written#sthash.ON8SdPXo.dpufwas first published in 1751. Gray may, however, have begun writing the poem in 1742, shortly after the death of his close friend Richard West. An elegy is a poem which laments the dead. Gray's "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard" is noteworthy in that it mourns the death not of great or famous people, but of common men. The speaker of this poem sees a country churchyard at sunset, which impels him to meditate on the nature of human mortality. The poem invokes the classical idea of memento mori, a Latin phrase which states plainly to all mankind, "Remember that you must die." The speaker considers the fact that in death, there is no difference between great and common people. He goes on to wonder if among the lowly people buried in the churchyard there had been any natural poets or politicians whose talent had simply never been discovered or nurtured. This thought leads him to praise the dead for the honest, simple lives that they lived.

Gray did not produce a great deal of poetry; the "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard," however, has earned him a respected and deserved place in literary history. The poem was written at the end of the Augustan Age and at the beginning of the Romantic period, and the poem has characteristics associated with both literary periods. On the one hand, it has the ordered, balanced phrasing and rational sentiments of Neoclassical poetry. On the other hand, it tends toward the emotionalism and individualism of the Romantic poets; most importantly, it idealizes and elevates the common man.
- See more at: http://www.enotes.com/topics/elegy-written#sthash.ON8SdPXo.dpuf

thomas gray

Thomas Gray,  (born Dec. 26, 1716, London—died July 30, 1771, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, Eng.), English poet whose “An Elegy Written in a Country Church Yard” is one of the best known of English lyric poems. Although his literary output was slight, he was the dominant poetic figure in the mid-18th century and a precursor of the Romantic movement.

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Born into a prosperous but unhappy home, Gray was the sole survivor of 12 children of a harsh and violent father and a long-suffering mother, who operated a millinery business to educate him. A delicate and studious boy, he was sent to Eton in 1725 at the age of eight. There he formed a “Quadruple Alliance” with three other boys who liked poetry and classics and disliked rowdy sports and the Hogarthian manners of the period. They were Horace Walpole, the son of the prime minister; the precocious poet Richard West, who was closest to Gray; and Thomas Ashton. The style of life Gray developed at Eton, devoted to quiet study, the pleasures of the imagination, and a few understanding friends, was to persist for the rest of his years.
In 1734 he entered Peterhouse, Cambridge, where he began to write Latin verse of considerable merit. He left in 1738 without a degree and set out in 1739 with Walpole on a grand tour of France, Switzerland, and Italy at Sir Robert Walpole’s expense. At first all went well, but in 1741 they quarreled—possibly over Gray’s preferences for museums and scenery to Walpole’s interest in lighter social pursuits—and Gray returned to England. They were reconciled in 1745 on Walpole’s initiative and remained somewhat cooler friends for the rest of their lives.
In 1742 Gray settled at Cambridge. That same year West died, an event that affected him profoundly. Gray had begun to write English poems, among which some of the best were “Ode on the Spring,” “Sonnet on the Death of Mr. Richard West,” “Hymn to Adversity,” and “Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College.” They revealed his maturity, ease and felicity of expression, wistful melancholy, and the ability to phrase truisms in striking, quotable lines, such as “where ignorance is bliss, ’Tis folly to be wise.” The Eton ode was published in 1747 and again in 1748 along with “Ode on the Spring.” They attracted no attention.

It was not until “An Elegy Written in a Country Church Yard,” a poem long in the making, was published in 1751 that Gray was recognized. Its success was instantaneous and overwhelming. A dignified elegy in eloquent classical diction celebrating the graves of humble and unknown villagers was, in itself, a novelty. Its theme that the lives of the rich and poor alike “lead but to the grave” was already familiar, but Gray’s treatment—which had the effect of suggesting that it was not only the “rude forefathers of the village” he was mourning but the death of all men and of the poet himself—gave the poem its universal appeal. Gray’s newfound celebrity did not make the slightest difference in his habits. He remained at Peterhouse until 1756, when, outraged by a prank played on him by students, he moved to Pembroke College. He wrote two Pindaric odes, “The Progress of Poesy” and “The Bard,” published in 1757 by Walpole’s private Strawberry Hill Press. They were criticized, not without reason, for obscurity, and in disappointment, Gray virtually ceased to write. He was offered the laureateship in 1757 but declined it. He buried himself in his studies of Celtic and Scandinavian antiquities and became increasingly retiring and hypochondriacal. In his last years his peace was disrupted by his friendship with a young Swiss nobleman, Charles Victor de Bonstetten, for whom he conceived a romantic devotion, the most profound emotional experience of his life.

intro

Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard

In A Nutshell

Thomas Gray invariably plays second fiddle to the more famous eighteenth-century British poet Alexander Pope in the literary history books, which is kind of a bummer, because Gray was a really interesting guy. Sure, he wrote relatively few poems, and of those few, most readers and critics agree that "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard" is far and away the best, but the question is, why did he write so few poems? What was holding him back? How could the guy who wrote the haunting, beautiful "Elegy" also write the relatively stilted and formal "Sonnet on the Death of Richard West" (1775)?
There are so many unanswered questions about Thomas Gray! If Shmoop had a time machine, we'd want to transport ourselves back to the late 1700s to try to get the Shmoop scoop on Gray. What made this guy tick?
Here's what we do know: his home life wasn't so great. His father went kinda crazy on occasion, and abused his mother. Not a very happy environment to grow up in! But that's the good thing about being a relatively well-to-do young man in the 1700s: you get sent to boarding school from a very young age, so you get to escape from the yelling and abuse at home. At Eton, Gray met his BFF, Richard West (whose early death inspired the poem, "Sonnet on the Death of Richard West") and he also made friends with Horace Walpole, who grew up to write the totally awesome, completely insane The Castle of Otranto, the novel that practically launched the literary Gothic movement (a.k.a. the literary ancestors of modern horror flicks).
But what else do we know about Gray? Not much, really—he wrote a lot of letters, but didn't share much personal gossip. Gray tended to start poems and never finish them, or else he'd finish them but never publish them. He was offered the prestigious post of British Poet Laureate in 1757, but he turned it down. It seems as though he might have lacked confidence in himself as a poet.
He only published the "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard" because, after sending a few copies to his friends for their private enjoyment, some hack publishers got hold of it and tried to print a knock-off version without his permission. (Copyright laws weren't very strict in those days, so they'd have gotten away with it.) And yet the "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard" is hands-down one of the most beautiful poems written in the eighteenth century, and it certainly had a major impact on later writers, especially Romantic-era poets like William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and John Keats, among others.
The "Elegy" asks us to honor the lives of common, everyday people—not just rich, famous folks. This idea of glorifying mundane, everyday things becomes central to the philosophies of British Romantics. That's part of why Gray's "Elegy" often gets interpreted as a kind of turning point from the more formal poetry of the 18th century, with its emphasis on rich and famous people, to the more loose, free-form poetry of the Romantics, which focused more on everyday folks.
The "Elegy" was probably inspired in part by Gray's sadness at the death of his friend Richard West. It's not just about death, but how people are remembered after they're dead (if that's a theme that interests you, you should check out "Afterwards" by Thomas Hardy). Gray muses about what happens after people die, and in the final stanzas of the poem, he admits his own fear of dying. It's a powerful and evocative poem. Even if the "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard" were the only poem Gray ever wrote, Gray would deserve a place of pride in the literary history books, even alongside heavy hitters like Alexander Pope.

 

Why Should I Care?

Ever lost somebody that you cared about? No? Well, then you've probably at least experienced the loss of someone who moved far away. Still no? Well, not to bum you out, but chances are that you will—someday. And when that happens, you might find Thomas Gray's "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard" to be just what the doctor ordered.
Gray's "Elegy" isn't just about death, and it isn't just doom and gloom. It's about the fear of being forgotten after you're gone. Gray looks at the graves of common folks, and instead of just shrugging and figuring that their lives weren't worth remembering, he takes the time to think about what made them tick. And apparently this poem hit a chord with the eighteenth-century readers. It has been translated into many different languages and reprinted many times, and different lines of the poem have been quoted so often that they almost sound cliché now.
So, even if you've never experienced the loss of someone close to you, you should give the "Elegy" a shot. It's a poem that managed to walk that fine line: with its moving meditations on the value of human life—even after death—it's both deeply personal and also universal. 

Allusions & Cultural References

When poets refer to other great works, people, and events, it’s usually not accidental. Put on your super-sleuth hat and figure out why.

Literary and Philosophical References

• Milton" is a reference to John Milton, the seventeenth-century poet who penned Paradise Lost. (59)
• The Muses—goddesses in Greek and Roman mythology who were responsible for inspiring artists, musicians, and poets. (72, 81)

Historical References

• The "village-Hampden" referenced here is John Hampden, a Puritan politician who opposed the policies of King Charles I. He refused to pay a tax he thought was unfair. (57)
• "Cromwell" is a reference to Oliver Cromwell, the guy who ruled Britain after leading the anti-Royalists in the Civil War and bringing about the execution of King Charles I. Cromwell was the head of the short-lived English Commonwealth in 1649-1660. (60)

Pop Culture References

No references to popular culture in this poem, but there are some famous references to this poem in later literature! Thomas Hardy clearly loved this poem—he picks up some of the same ideas and themes in his poem, "Afterwards," and he uses a line of the poem to title his novel, Far From the Madding Crowd. Jane Austen has the irritatingly stuck-up Mrs. Elton quote from this poem in her novel Emma, and William Wordsworth uses Thomas Gray as an example of what NOT to do as a poet in his "Preface to Lyrical Ballads."

Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard: Rhyme, Form & Meter

Elegy in Heroic Quatrains

Okay, we have to hand it to those eighteenth-century poets like Alexander Pope and Thomas Gray. They sure were into form! Those guys were all about strict rhyme and meter, and they could really make it work. "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard" is an elegy, or a mournful poem, and it's written in what we call heroic quatrains. Huh?

Rhyming on the Regular

Let's translate that:
A heroic quatrain is a four-line stanza written in iambic pentameter with a rhyme scheme of ABAB. Don't worry, we'll translate that further. We'll start with the rhyme scheme. Check out the first stanza:
The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,(A)
The lowing herd wind slowly o'er the lea, (B)
The plowman homeward plods his weary way, (A)
And leaves the world to darkness and to me. (B)
The first line rhymes with the third line (as noted by the A), and the second line rhymes with the fourth line (the B). If you look at each stanza, you'll find that the same pattern is consistent throughout. And like we said, most eighteenth-century poets didn't play fast and loose with their form—you'll have a hard time finding exceptions to this pattern!

Really Regular Rhythms Required

Now let's talk about the meter, or the rhythm of stressed and unstressed syllables in each line. A heroic quatrain, as we said, is written in iambic pentameter. But what's that? Well, an iamb is an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable: da-DUM. And "pentameter" means that there are five ("penta" = five) iambs in each line: da-DUM, da-DUM, da-DUM, da-DUM, da-DUM. Check it out in action. Let's look at that first stanza again, but we'll highlight the syllables that you'd naturally stress while reading this out loud:
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.
There are five of those iambs, or da-DUM units, in each line. There you have it: iambic pentameter. And like the rhyme scheme, you'll find that Gray hardly ever deviates from his chosen form. He'll even shorten words to make them fit—like the word "over" in line 2, which he contracts to "o'er" to make it a single syllable. You'll notice that kind of poetic contraction a various points in the poem. Rather than have a messy syllable out of place, Gray (and other eighteenth-century poets) would just lop off a vowel and stick in an apostrophe and make a contraction.

Form: Fitting?

It's seems almost contradictory that a poem about the lives of common, everyday people should be so obsessively concerned with poetic form and meter. After all, the common villagers that Gray writes about wouldn't give two straws about iambic pentameter, so why bother with the strict meter? Could be that Gray was trying to suggest that "heroic" quatrains are absolutely appropriate for writing about these common folks. After all, part of the point of his poem is that there could be unsung heroes buried in this churchyard. Why not use an elevated, fancy poetic form to honor and glorify them, since they don't have fancy monuments over their graves?
Some readers really dig the strict attention for form and detail in eighteenth-century poetry, while other readers prefer the more loosey-goosey free-form poetry of the Romantic-era poets in the early 1800s (poets like John Keats, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Blake, Lord Byron), or the really free-wheeling poetry of the twentieth century (poets like T.S. Eliot or Ezra Pound). What's your preference? Do you appreciate the skill it took someone like Thomas Gray to write a long poem in a set form? Or do you think that kind of attention to form limits a poet's ability to express him or herself? (Hint: there's no right answer here!)

Speaker Point of View

Who is the speaker, can she or he read minds, and, more importantly, can we trust her or him?

The speaker of "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard" is a thoughtful, pensive guy. He likes to be alone. At night. In graveyards. So that he can think about death. Good times. But you know the type, right? You might find someone like this speaker in your local coffee shop, wearing all black and maybe just a tad too much eye makeup, reading Camus or Sartre and thinking deep, deep thoughts.
But there's more to this speaker than his arguably morbid tendency to hang out in graveyards. He wants to make sure that we all remember the lives of people who lived before us, even the lives of simple, country folks like the ones buried in the churchyard where the poem takes place. He wants to be conscious of the way that he himself will be remembered after he's dead and gone, and that means thinking carefully about how other people see him now.
Sure, this might seem morbid, but the speaker seems to want to set himself apart from the kind of rich, snobby people who just care about erecting huge monuments and mausoleums in their own honor after they die. Instead, he wants to leave something less concrete behind him in the memories of the people that he cares about.

Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard Setting

Where It All Goes Down

Gray's "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard" takes place—you guessed it—in a country churchyard. And that means that it was written among all the gravestones of the dead members of that church. It's shaded by elm and yew trees, and there's an owl hooting in the background. Spooky, right?
But it's not supposed to be a spooky poem—this isn't about dead people coming back to haunt the living, it's about how the living remember the dead. And as the speaker imagines what these dead people's lives were like, the setting of the poem shifts—the speaker imagines their everyday lives in their country cottages. Most of these people were farmers, so he imagines them plowing their fields, and coming home to their wives and children at night.
But then the speaker imagines what people will say about him, when he dies, and the setting of the poem shifts again. Now we're in the shoes of some passerby who happens to see the name of the poet on a gravestone, and happens to ask someone what he was like. The speaker imagines that he'll be remembered mostly as a thoughtful guy who loved nature, who was often seen lost in thought under a tree or by the creek.
So, in spite of the poem's title, the setting really isn't creepytown. The emphasis is on the average, everyday, simple "country" part of the setting. There are lots of trees, and creeks, and farms, and no ghosts in the graveyard at all—unless you count the memories of the past that we all carry with us.

Symbolism, Imagery & Wordplay

Night and Darkness Imagery

The poem takes place around the time of sunset in a country churchyard—also known as a cemetery. Kinda spooky, right? And the darkness of the setting is appropriate for the subject matter, too. The speaker is talking about the unknown. He's contemplating mortality and what happens to people after they die. Of course, no one really knows what will happen after death, so the darkness might symbolize the mystery of what happens after we die.

• Line 1: The speaker uses personification in the very first line when he says that the church bell "tolls the knell" of the day. When a person dies, you ring a church bell to commemorate their death, and that's called a "death knell," so the poet is implying that the bell that rings at sundown is commemorating the death of the day, as though the day were a real person. 
• Lines 5-6: The speaker uses alliteration, or the repetition of consonant sounds, when he describes the "solemn stillness" of the scene at sunset. The repeated S sound (also known as sibilance) is like a sort of "shushing"—maybe the speaker wants to emphasize the quiet, calm, stillness of the atmosphere.
• Lines 13-16: The speaker uses a metaphor when he says that the dead villagers are only "sleeping" in the shade of the tree. In fact, this is a euphemism, or a polite way of describing something to soften its harsh reality (like saying that you're "excusing yourself for a moment" at a fancy dinner, rather than saying "I have to go pee now"). Why would Gray use a euphemism here? Could be that part of him is afraid of death and his own mortality, so he'd rather think of these villagers as merely "sleeping" or resting comfortably, rather than rotting away underground?
• Lines 53-54: The speaker uses a metaphor when he describes people whose good qualities go unrecognized as "gems" that are hidden in dark caves under the ocean.

  Farms and the Countryside Imagery

• This poem takes place out in the country. In fact, the setting is so important to the poet that he announces it in the title, just to be sure that you don't miss it! Why would the country make more sense for the setting of this poem? Well, country folks are generally seen as simpler than their city counterparts. Since they're farmers, they're more in tune with the earth and with nature, and more in touch with the things that really matter, according to the speaker—things like the cycles of life and death.
  

  • Line 2: If the title of the poem didn't tip you off right away that we're hanging out in the country, and not in the city, maybe the mooing herd of cows that appears in line 2 will convince you. Guys: this is NOT a city poem. Cows!
  • Line 3: The speaker uses alliteration when he repeats the Pl- sound of "plowman plods" and the W sound of "weary way." The repetition of those consonant sounds might help to emphasize how tired the farmer is—he's "plodding" along. It also might emphasize that the farmers do this every single day. Plod, plod, plod. 
  • Line 25: The speaker personifies the harvest when he says that it "yields" to the farmer's sickle, the way a beaten warrior would "yield" or surrender to a superior force. (A sickle is a sharp, curved farm tool used to cut grain. They've been used for so many centuries and millennia that they often get associated with our ancient, primitive ancestors. Here's what a sickle looks like.)
  • Line 29: The speaker personifies "Ambition" when he says that we shouldn't let the desire to get ahead and get rich keep us from appreciating the useful work of the farmers. 
  • Lines 101-104: The poet uses alliteration to describe the laziness of stretching out under a tree near a stream. The repetition of the L sounds ("listless length") and of the B sounds ("brook that babbles by") sort of imitates the sound of the wind in the tree overhead and the sound of the flowing stream.

    Trees and Birds

  • There are so many different species of tree and bird named in this poem that it's difficult to list them all. What are all these trees and birds doing in the poem? They're more than just pretty landscape, that's for sure.
    For one thing, they could add to the important natural setting of the poem—like the farms and countryside, the trees and birds remind us of cycles of life: trees lose their leaves in the fall and they grow back in the spring. Birds lay eggs and have chicks in the spring. And in a poem about death and mortality, remembering that leaves do grow back and new baby birds are born every year is important. Not only might they represent the cycle of life, but specific types of trees and birds have different traditional symbolic meanings in Western poetry. Let's look at a few examples…
    

    • Line 10: Here's our first bird! It's an owl. The speaker personifies the owl when he says that it's "moping" and "complaining" to the moon. Since owls are nocturnal, they're often associated with death and with spooky hauntings. How appropriate for a poem about death that is set in a graveyard!
    • Line 13: Here are our first trees: elms and yews. Elms tend to be associated with strength in poetry (which may be why the speaker calls them "rugged"), while yew trees often represent eternity and immortality. It's not clear whether or not Gray intends to bring up the traditional poetic symbolism of these trees, but "eternity" sure would be appropriate, given that his poem is about death and what happens afterwards!
    • Lines 18-19: More birds! First he imagines a twittering, tweeting swallow, which is often associated with farms and barns, since that's where they like to build nests. Swallows are also early risers, like the "cock" or rooster that the speaker imagines crowing in the following line. These are the birds you hear first thing in the morning. The speaker is imagining the deaths of the local villagers, so these are the birds that he says they'll never wake up to hear again. 
    • Line 101: Another tree—this time, the speaker is imagining how he'll be remembered after he dies. He thinks that folks might recall how he used to stretch out lazily under a beech tree. The beech is traditionally associated with ancient history, the written word, and knowledge of the past. Sounds like a great tree to associate with a poet, don't you think? What kind of tree or bird would you associate with yourself? Why

Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard Questions

Bring on the tough stuff - there’s not just one right answer.

1. What do you think prompts the speaker to start thinking about his own death? For the first twenty or so stanzas, he's cheerfully thinking about the dead villagers. What shifts, and why?
2. Why do you think Gray uses so much personification? Why, for example, does he say "Let not Ambition mock their useful toil" in line 29, instead of, "Hey, ambitious people, don't make fun of these guys"? What's the effect on your reading? 
3. In his Preface to Lyrical Ballads (which you can access here), William Wordsworth famously used Thomas Gray as an example of what poets should not do. He said that Gray used too much of what he called "unnatural" language—too many metaphors, too many personifications. Wordsworth argued that regular people didn't really talk like that, so poets shouldn't, either. Do you agree with Wordsworth? Why or why not? See if you can use examples from the poem to explain your answer.
4. Who do you think is the intended audience of this poem? Men, women? Rich people, poor people? Young or old? Why do you think so?
5. If this is an "Elegy," or a poem of mourning, who or what is it mourning? How do you know?
6. Why do you think Gray insisted so much on the fact that it's a country churchyard? Would the poem be different if it were set in a city? How so?
7. What do you imagine people will say about you after you're dead? What would you like them to say? If you could write your own epitaph, as Gray does in this poem, what would it say?

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What’s Up With the Title?

The title of this poem seems pretty straightforward: it announces the genre of the poem and the place where it was written. But let's think a little more about that—an elegy is a mournful, sad poem, especially one that was written to mourn for the dead. And it was, in fact, written (or at least takes place) in a country churchyard. But if this is an elegy, whom is it mourning?
At the start of the poem, the speaker is mourning for the deaths of all the simple country folks who are buried in the churchyard. And by the end of the poem, he is imagining his own death. Some critics think that the poem was inspired by the death of Gray's best friend, Richard West, although West is never mentioned in this poem. So…what do you think? Is the speaker mourning death, in general? Is he mourning for his friend? Or is he really just mourning for his own mortality?

Lines 93-100

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.

• Look, gang, more enjambment! The same sentence continues across a stanza break, so we'll look at both stanzas at once.
• The speaker refers to himself in these lines—he's calling himself "thee."
• (Fun grammar fact: most modern readers think of "thee" and "thou" as an old-fashioned, fancy-pants version of "you." But no! It's not fancy-pants at all!
• "Thee" and "thou" were actually informal or more intimate versions of "you." Like French, Spanish, and many other languages that have two versions of "you," English used to have a formal and an informal way of saying "you." And it makes sense that if the poet is addressing himself, he'd use the more informal way of doing so.)
• Okay, so what's our speaker actually saying to himself? He's saying that he is aware ("mindful") of the dead people who haven't been honored with lots of monuments, so he's memorializing them in these very lines of poetry.
• Then the speaker wonders what would happen if some random kindred spirit, who happened to be musing on similar things (i.e., death), might ask about the speaker's fate.
• He answers this question in the next stanza, and with some alliteration thrown in while he's at it ("Haply some hoary-headed" and "swain […] say")!
• Probably some gray-haired ("hoary-headed") farmer guy ("swain") would say that they had often seen the speaker hurrying through the dew-covered grass to watch the sun come up on the meadow lawn.

  Lines 101-104

• "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.
  
  • The speaker continues to imagine what the "hoary-headed swain" would say about him, if a random passerby happened to ask.
  • He imagines the old guy saying that at noon, the speaker used to stretch out at the foot of the old beech tree—the one that has fantastically weird roots—and that he would stare at the babbling brook.
  • "Listless length" in line 103 is another great example of alliteration.

    Lines 105-108

  • 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.
    
    • This stanza continues with what the speaker imagines an old villager would say about him after he was dead and gone.
    • He imagines the old guy saying that the speaker used to rove, or wander, in the nearby woods. 
    • Sometimes, the speaker would smile almost scornfully, while muttering to himself, and sometimes he would look all droopy and mopey, pale ("wan") with sorrow, like he was anxious or else hopelessly in love with someone who didn't love him back. Good times!

      Lines 109-112

    • "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 speaker continues to imagine what the old villager might say about him after he's dead and gone:
      • He imagines the villager saying that he missed seeing the speaker one morning in the usual place on a local hillside, along the fields ("heath") by the speaker's favorite tree. (This is probably the beech tree mentioned in Stanza 26.)
      • The villager goes on to say that another day passed, and yet he still didn't see the speaker by the brook ("rill") or on the grass, or by the woods. Sounds like something's up…

        Lines 113-116

      • "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 speaker continues to imagine what an old villager would say about him after his death: 
        • And on the third day after the speaker didn't show up, the old villager says that dirges (funeral songs) were played, and that they saw the speaker carried slowly along the path to the church in a funeral procession.
        • The villager invites the random passerby who asked (the "kindred spirit" of line 96) to read the epitaph that is engraved on the speaker's tombstone, underneath the gnarly old thornbush.

          Lines 117-120

        • 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.
          
          • Now we're supposed to imagine that we, like the "kindred spirit" who asked about the dead speaker, are reading Thomas Gray's imagined epitaph. Morbid?
          • Yes. But kind of cool, we have to admit. Let's see what it says…
          • This is where the speaker is resting his head on the ground.
          • Yes, that's a metaphor! Dead people don't really "rest their heads" anywhere—they're dead, after all. And "Earth" is being personified when the speaker imagines that it could have a "lap."
          • The speaker calls himself a young person who is unknown both to Fortune (i.e., good luck or wealth—it could mean either) and to Fame. In other words, he was of humble birth.
          • But at least he was no stranger to knowledge, or science, in spite of his humble origins. He was a scholar and a poet!
          • But, alas, he was sometimes kinda depressed.
          • We get more personification here, too—you can tell because all those nouns (Fame, Fortune, Science, Melancholy) are capitalized.

            Lines 121-124

             
          • 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.
            
            • He might have had humble beginnings, but he did pretty well for himself—he was generous and sincere, and Heaven paid him back (sent a "recompense") for those good qualities.
            • The speaker gave everything he had to his depression, or (as personified here) Misery—in other words, his tears.
            • But Heaven gave him something pretty awesome: a friend.

              Lines 125-128

            • 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.
              

              • Don't try to find out anything more about the dead speaker's good points.
              • And don't try to dig up any dirt on his bad points, or frailties, either.
              • Why not, you ask? Both his good and his bad points are in "repose," or resting, hoping for eternal life, in heaven with God. That's why not.

elegy utpto 84 stanzas

Lines 1-4

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.

• So, right off the bat we have some vocab to sort out in this poem. The "curfew" is a bell that rings at the end of the day, but a "knell" is a bell that rings when someone dies. So it's like the "parting day" is actually dying. Sounds like a metaphor!
• The mooing herd of cows makes its winding way over the meadow ("lea" = "meadows")
• And the tired farmer clomps on home.
• Now that the cows and the farmer are out of the picture, the speaker gets everything in the world to himself (he has to share it with the growing darkness, but that's not so bad).
• Notice that the speaker refers to himself in the first person right away in that first stanza: the parting farmer and cows leave "the world […] to me."
• This would be a good time to note that the poet often removes vowels and replaces them with an apostrophe, like "o'er" instead of "over" in the second line.
• If you ever notice an odd-looking word with an apostrophe in it, try replacing the apostrophe with a letter to make a familiar word. Gray makes these contractions to make the number of syllables fit the iambic pentameter. While we're talking about form, we'll also point out the rhyme scheme here—it's ABAB.

Lines 5-8

• 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;
• So what's happening, exactly? The "glimm'ring landscape" is fading from the poet's sight. Must be sunset, but we knew that from the first stanza.
• The air is quiet, too, except for the buzz of the occasional beetle and the tinkling bells hanging around the necks of livestock in their "folds" (a.k.a. barns).
• Sounds peaceful and sleepy, like everything is winding down.
• There are some interesting literary devices in these lines, too: "solemn stillness" is a great example of alliteration, and the speaker personifies the "tinkling" of the bells when he says that they're "drowsy." Go to the "Symbols" section for more on these literary tools!

Lines 9-12

• 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.
  
  • Here are some more exceptions to the overall peace and quiet: the bent-out-of-shape owl is hooting. 
  • More figurative language here! The speaker uses metaphor to describe the tower where the owl lives as "ivy-mantled." (A "mantle" is a kind of cloak or coat, so the speaker is saying that the tower is dressed up in ivy. Cool!)
  • Because the title of the poem says that it was "written in a country churchyard," we can guess that the "tower" mentioned here is probably the church tower.
  • But the speaker doesn't just say that there's an owl hooting—he uses some more figurative language. He personifies the owl when he says that it's "moping" and "complaining," since those are things a person would do, not an owl.
  • And what's the mopey owl complaining about? Apparently, he's complaining that there's an outsider nearby—someone who is wandering near her private digs (a "bower" is a lady's private room) and bothering her solitude.
  • Who is that outsider? Sounds like the owl is probably complaining about the presence of the speaker himself! (And we're just assuming the speaker is a "he.")

Lines 13-16

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.

• This stanza is all one long sentence, and the sentence structure is a bit wacky, so let's try to sort it out.
• The subject and the verb of the sentence are way down there in the last line of the stanza: "The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep."
• Hold up—the speaker isn't saying that the ancestors of the town (a "hamlet" is a tiny town, not an omelet with ham in it!) are impolite. "Rude" is used to describe someone who was from the country. Someone who wasn't sophisticated, and who was maybe a bit of a bumpkin. So the forefathers being described here are probably just simple country folks, not discourteous, impolite jerks. 
• So what are these country forefathers of the hamlet doing? They're sleeping. Sounds peaceful, right?
• Except, look at the third line of the stanza—they're not sleeping at home in their beds. They're sleeping in narrow cells, and they're laid in there forever.
• Sounds like they're sleeping in only a metaphorical sense. These guys are dead and lying in their graves in the churchyard!
• The first two lines of the poem set the scene. These graves are under elm and yew trees, and there are piles of turf on each one. 
• So we're not just hanging out outside of a church as the sun goes down. We're actually hanging out in the graveyard. Spooky!

Lines 17-20

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.

• If you hadn't figured it out from the previous stanza, the speaker wants to clarify that the sleeping guys are not going to wake up. Here's how he explains it:
• The first three lines of this stanza list different things that normally would wake a person up (at least, in the days before alarm clocks and cell phones).
  (1) The delicious smells of the breeze first thing in the morning ("incense" is a substance that you burn to make a room smell good).
  (2) Birds twittering and singing in their straw nests.
  (3) The rooster's cock-a-doodle-doo ("clarion" = "alarm"), or the echoes of a horn blown by a hunter or a shepherd.
• Having listed all those things in the first three lines, the speaker tells us that none of those things are going to wake up the dead guys anymore. Okay, speaker!
• We get it! They're dead, not just sleeping!

  Lines 21-24

• 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.
  
  • Now the speaker is listing the kinds of day-to-day pleasures that these dead guys in the graveyard aren't going to get to enjoy anymore. So many lists!
    (1) No one is burning the hearth fire for them anymore.
    (2) No housewife is trying to take care of him after he gets home from work in the evenings.
    (3) No little kids are yelling, "Daddy's home!" when he gets back from work. (A few vocab clarifications on this one: since little kids don't enunciate clearly, poets used to describe children's speech as "lisping," and "sire" means "father.")
    (4) No little kids climb up onto his lap for kisses that would make their siblings envy them.
  • Wow, the speaker is really piling up the reasons it's a total bummer to be dead. Those poor dead guys in the graveyard! They're really missing out!

    Lines 25-28

  • 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!
    
    • Now the speaker imagines the kinds of things these guys did back when they were still alive.
    • These are country folks, remember (since they were described as "rude," and since we know from the title that this is a "country churchyard"), so they were farmers.
    • They often harvested their crops with their sickles (a sickle is a curved knife, like this).
    • More farmer lingo in this line: the "furrow" is a long, narrow, shallow hole that you drop seeds into. "Glebe" is an archaic word for farmland. Farmers would cut the furrow into the glebe using a plough, but if the ground is really hard to break into, you might describe it as "stubborn." Here's a pic of a plough cutting a furrow.
    • The speaker imagines that the farmers were cheerful, or jocund, as they drove their teams of oxen or mules into the field to plough.
    • The woods bowed to the stroke of their axes as they cleared forests to make their farms.
    • More personification! Even if you're really handy with an axe, the trees aren't going to bow down to you out of respect. They're just going to fall over.

      Lines 29-32

    • 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.
      
      • More figurative language, y'all! The speaker personifies Ambition and Grandeur in these lines. You can tell because (a) he capitalizes them, as though they were proper nouns or names, and also because he says that they're doing stuff ("mocking" and "hearing") that only people do.
      • So, what's the deal with that personification? The speaker is telling the readers that they shouldn't mock the hard work, or the homely, simple pleasures, or the unsung, "obscure" destinies of the poor farmers in the graveyard. But he doesn't come out and tell the readers to lay off the mockery—instead, he says that they shouldn't allow "Ambition" to mock them. He's sort of displacing the blame. Regular people wouldn't mock these honest guys—only Ambition would be that cruel. Maybe he doesn't want the readers to feel as though he's shaking a finger at them, even though he kind of is.
      • Same deal with the second two lines of the stanza: the speaker says that we shouldn't allow "Grandeur," or high social status, to smile disdainfully or scornfully at the day-to-day accounts ("annals") of poor people.
      • Again, though, it seems like the speaker is personifying "Grandeur" to take the edge off of this stanza so that it won't sound like he's scolding the readers.
      • (Rule Number 1 of Writing: If you want to earn money from your writing, you probably shouldn't attack the audience or make them feel bad about themselves.)

        Lines 33-36

      • 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.
        
        • Aha. Here's the real reason why the speaker doesn't want proud, ambitious, grand people to make fun of the poor people in the churchyard: it's because we're all heading there someday, too!
        • Here are a few nitty-gritty vocab notes before we start unraveling the sentence structure of these lines: "Heraldry" is the coat of arms associated with old, aristocratic families. Families with a coat of arms would embroider it on everything from their servants' coats to the outside of their carriage to the screen in front of the fireplace. Check out this example.
        • "Pomp" means proud, meaningless ceremony—basically, any ceremony designed to make people feel important but that doesn't really convey any meaning.
        • Last one: "inevitable" means unavoidable.
        • Phew. Okay. Now let's get back to the summary! The speaker starts with a list (this guy seems to be fond of lists). Here we go: 1) Bragging about your family's heraldry, 2) The empty ceremony of being in a position of power, and 3) The beauty that can be obtained from wealth—all of those things are waiting for the unavoidable, inevitable time. 
        • What time, you ask? Yep, you guessed it: all of those paths lead only to the GRAVE. 

          Lines 37-40

        • 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.
          
          • The speaker has more advice to proud, rich, hoity-toity people: He addresses them as "ye proud," and tells them not to blame ("impute […] the fault") these dead poor dead people if they don't have fancy monuments ("trophies") over their graves.
          • More personification! Again, it's like the speaker is displacing blame. He says that "Memory" failed to put up fancy trophies or monuments, but really, wouldn't that be the responsibility of the families of the dead people? But of course, the dead guys in the churchyard are mostly poor farmers, so obviously their families wouldn't be able to afford a fancy marble monument in the church itself. So, the speaker shifts the blame onto the personified "Memory."
          • The last two lines of the stanza describe the church itself—the place where the monuments might be displayed. 
          • The bell that marks the passing of a member of the church "peals" in praise of his or her life all through the aisles of the church and up to its high, arched ("vaulted"), ornamentally carved ("fretted") ceiling.

            Lines 41-44

          • 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?
            
            • This stanza is a pair of rhetorical questions.
            • The speaker is still addressing the proud, hoity-toity readers—the ones that, he imagines, might have mocked the lowly farmers in the churchyard back in stanza 7.
            • He asks them whether a fancy-schmancy urn (a container to hold a dead person's remains) or a really life-like bust (a statue of a person's head and shoulders, in this case to commemorate a dead person) could call the breath back to a dead person and make him breathe again.
            • Except he doesn't say so quite that directly—he uses a metaphor. The dead person's body is a "mansion," and the speaker personifies the urn and the bust, asking if they can call the dead person's breath back to the mansion of their body. Phew, that's a mouthful!
            • Second rhetorical question: the speaker asks if the voice of "Honour" (another personification!) can provoke the silent, dusty remains of a dead person to speak again, or whether Flattery (another personification!) can make the cold ear of Death (yet another personification!) feel better about being dead.
            • (The answer to both of those rhetorical questions, obviously, is "No, of course not!")

              Lines 45-48

            • 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.
              
              • Now the speaker is reflecting on what type of person might be lying in the unmarked graves in the churchyard
              • Maybe, in the churchyard, there lies a person whose heart was once full ("pregnant" means full, here) of what the speaker calls "celestial fire."
              • Huh. What could that mean? Sounds like a metaphor to us, since no one's heart is literally full of fire, celestial or otherwise. "Celestial fire" must be a metaphor for passion.
              • Maybe, in the churchyard, there lies a person whose hands could have ruled an empire. Or someone whose hands could have played a lyre (a kind of old-school harp) so well that the lyre would have become conscious. That's playing a mean lyre!

                Lines 49-52

              • 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.
                
                • Yep, that's another personification in the first line—the capitalized noun probably tipped you off. 
                • "Knowledge" is the subject of this sentence, but where's the verb? The sentence structure is wacky. Let's try to untangle it.
                • Let's see…if we rearrange the sentence so that it's in a more usual structure, here's what it would look like: "Knowledge ne'er (never) did unroll her ample page, [which is] rich with the spoils of time, to their eyes."
                • Okay, now that's starting to make more sense, but there's a metaphor there that needs more unraveling. Let's check it out.
                • It's as though Knowledge is a big collection of pages, and, as time goes on, those pages get filled with more and more information—that's what the speaker calls the "spoils of time." ("Spoils" means "plunder" or "loot.")
                • But these poor guys in the graveyard never had access to all the knowledge history had to offer—those pages were never "unrolled" "to their eyes."
                • And why? Because poverty ("penury"= poverty) held back the noble parts of their characters—their passion, even their rage. 
                • More personification! "Penury" is being treated like a person—it's the thing that repressed and froze the dead people's potential.
                • And another metaphor, too: imagine that a person's soul is a river. Well, poverty can freeze up the current of your soul-river.
                • This is a bummer, but the speaker might have a point. Let's read on…

                  Lines 53-56

                • 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.
                  
                  • Wait, why are we talking about gems and flowers now? Must be more metaphor. Let's take a closer look:
                  • "Full many" is just an eighteenth-century phrase that means "lots of." So, lots of beautiful, pure gems are hidden away in dark caves under the ocean. 
                  • And lots of flowers come into blushing bloom without a human to see and appreciate their beauty or their sweet scent.
                  • This stanza is about unsung heroes, like the guys buried in the churchyard without monuments or "trophies," and both the gems and the flowers are metaphors for people who do awesome stuff that doesn't get recognized.
                  • Fun fact! These lines get quoted in Emma by Jane Austen, by the irritatingly self-important Mrs. Elton. Could be a sign that Austen, like Wordsworth, thought that Gray's poetry was too formal and stilted, since a character like Mrs. Elton is not exactly known for her good taste in literature. Of course, we love Thomas Gray, so this is one instance when we disagree with both Wordsworth and Austen!

                    lines 57-60

                  • 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.
                    
                    • The speaker muses that there might be dead people buried here that could have been famous revolutionaries or poets, but they died unknown and undiscovered.
                    • Maybe there was some village-version of John Hampden who stood up to tyranny on the village green! 
                    • (Historical side note: the real John Hampden was a Puritan politician who opposed the policies of King Charles I. He refused to pay a tax he thought was unfair. So Gray calls him "dauntless," or "fearless," for standing up to the "little tyrant," or the king.)
                    • Or maybe there was someone as brilliant as John Milton (you know, the guy who wrote Paradise Lost), but he died mute, without being able to express his brilliance. 
                    • Or maybe there was someone who would have wreaked as much havoc as Cromwell, but who didn't have a chance. 
                    • Another historical note! Oliver Cromwell was the leader of the anti-royalists during the English Civil War, helped bring about the execution of King Charles I, and became head of the short-lived English Commonwealth in 1649-1660. He wasn't a popular guy in the history books at the time Gray was writing.
                    • Another fun fact! Both Hampden and Milton were from the same area of England where Gray was writing his "Elegy." So maybe Gray liked to imagine that the same area could have produced other guys who were just as brilliant, but who remained unknown.

                      Lines 61-65

                    • 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: […]
                      
                      • We've been going through the poem one stanza at a time, but things get a bit too wacky here, and here's why: notice how Stanza 16 ends with a comma, and not a period? Yeah, we did, too. The sentence actually carries over between stanzas! This is called enjambment, and it can trip you up if you're not careful.
                      • Okay, so if we unravel the weird sentence structure, we can figure out what's going on here. You actually have to start at the end: The dead villagers in the graveyard are replaced with the pronoun "Their" in line 65. 
                      • The dead villagers' situation, or "lot," kept them from receiving ("commanding") the applause and approval of politicians.
                      • Their situation also made it impossible for them to blow off threats of pain and ruin. 
                      • Nor could they spread good stuff ("plenty") all over the country, even though that would win them a place in the history books in the eyes of their countrymen.
                      • Nope, the villagers were poor and died unknown because of their poverty, or "penury," as the speaker calls it in Stanza 13.

                        Lines 65-72

                      • …] 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.
                        
                        • Again, we have to combine two stanzas because the sentence continues across the stanza break—more enjambment! 
                        • Not only does the poverty of the villagers prevent ("circumscribe" = prevent) them from developing the virtues that would get them remembered in the history books, it also keeps them from committing crimes.
                        • Here are some examples of the crimes these poor villagers just don't have time to commit, since they're busy working to put food on the table: 
                        • They don't have time to wade through blood and gore to kill a king on his throne, or to act all merciless to people.
                        • Another metaphor there! Slamming the "gates of mercy" is a metaphor for being merciless. (Try to work that one into everyday conversation. You can tell your athlete friends to "shut the gates of mercy" on the other team!)
                        • The villager's lot in life keeps them from trying to hide the truth, especially when the truth is struggling and conscious of BEING the truth.
                        • Their situation likewise keeps them from trying to hide their blushes. After all, a blush indicates that you're ashamed of something, right? So if you hide your blushes, you're hiding your true feelings. So this one goes along with the previous line.
                        • "Ingenuous" means innocent.
                        • And there's more metaphor here. You know how when you blush, your face feels hot? We talk about "quenching" flame, so here, the blush is the metaphorical flame that's getting "quenched."
                        • The poor villagers also don't have the chance to use fancy and flattering words to build a metaphorical shrine to the personified Luxury and Pride.
                        • The Muses were the goddesses in Greek and Roman mythology who were responsible for inspiring artists, musicians, and poets. So the "incense" that was lit at the Muse's flame must be a pen that is metaphorically kindled, lit up, or inspired by the Muses.

                          Lines 73-76

                        • 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.
                          
                          • Since the poor villagers who are buried in the churchyard live far away from the noise and strife of crowded cities, they never learned to stray away from more sober, serious wishes and desires.
                          • Because they live in a secluded ("sequester'd") area, they were able to live their lives without making a lot of hubbub or noise.
                          • Fun fact! Thomas Hardy, the English novelist, gives a shout-out to Thomas Gray by titling one of his novels Far from the Madding Crowd.

                            Lines 77-80

                          • 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.
                            
                            • Even though these poor villagers don't have big fancy monuments or "trophies" over their graves, they at least still have frail, flimsy memorials nearby, if only to protect their remains from the insult of having people picnic or play cricket on their graves.
                            • These flimsy memorials aren't made out of fancy marble—they just have rough, shapeless sculptures to ornament ("deck") them, and are decorated with crude, uncouth poetry.
                            • But even though the memorials aren't all fancy, they still inspire passersby to pause long enough to sigh. So there!

                              Lines 81-84

                            • 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. 
                              
                              • The "frail" monuments (78) are engraved only with the dead people's name and the years of their birth and death, and even this simple inscription was clearly made by someone who was largely illiterate, or "unlettered."
                              • The speaker uses irony when he says that inscription was made by a "muse." Since the muses were goddesses of poetry, how could they be unlettered or illiterate?
                              • These simple inscriptions take the place of fame and fancy elegies (poems written in memory of dead people).
                              • "She" is the muse referred to in the previous line.
                              • The "unlettered muse" also adds ("strews") the occasional Bible verse ("holy text") that inspires country folks to think about death so that they'll be prepared when their time comes.

                                Lines 85-88

                              • 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?
                                
                                • After all, the speaker asks, who is going to give up ("resign") their life ("being"), which is both pleasing and anxious, or to leave the warm environment of the earth, without looking behind them at what they leave behind—especially someone who, like the villagers, is going to be forgotten when he or she is dead?

                      1. We get another metaphor here in line 85, and some more personification, too! Being forgotten when you're dead is like being hunted down as the "prey" of a predator called "Forgetfulness." Sounds scary!

                      • • • • • • Finally, we get more alliteration here, with the repeated beginning L sound in "longing, ling'ring look."

                                  Lines 89-92

                                • 
                                  
                                  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.
                                  
                                  
                                  • Even simple, poor, country folks like the villagers in the churchyard depend on their loved ones as they die (or as their souls "part" from the world).
                                  • They need some pious, religious friend or neighbor to close their eyes for them as they die.
                                  • It's only natural, after all—it's the "voice of Nature" (yep, "Nature" is—you guessed it—being personified!).
                                  • That voice of Nature calls out from the grave, and the villagers' accustomed passions (their "wonted fires") live on in their ashes, or their remains.

summary of elegy

Summary

The speaker is hanging out in a churchyard just after the sun goes down. It's dark and a bit spooky. He looks at the dimly lit gravestones, but none of the grave markers are all that impressive—most of the people buried here are poor folks from the village, so their tombstones are just simple, roughly carved stones.
The speaker starts to imagine the kinds of lives these dead guys probably led. Then he shakes his finger at the reader, and tells us not to get all snobby about the rough monuments these dead guys have on their tombs, since, really, it doesn't matter what kind of a tomb you have when you're dead, anyway. And guys, the speaker reminds us, we're all going to die someday.
But that gets the speaker thinking about his own inevitable death, and he gets a little freaked out. He imagines that someday in the future, some random guy (a "kindred spirit") might pass through this same graveyard, just as he was doing today. And that guy might see the speaker's tombstone, and ask a local villager about it. And then he imagines what the villager might say about him.
At the end, he imagines that the villager points out the epitaph engraved on the tombstone, and invites the passerby to read it for himself. So basically, Thomas Gray writes his own epitaph at the end of this poem.

shafqat ullah khan
imsportful@gmail.com

elegy by thomas gray (text)

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. 

norman conquest

After the battle

After the battle of Hastings was won, William of Normandy expected the English lords to pay tribute to him. However, this did not happen. So he decided to rest his army for some time before proceeding to London.

The Battle of Hastings

The Battle of Hastings which took place on October 14, 1066 is considered to the decisive battle resulting in the Norman conquest of England. The battle took place at Senlac Hill, about ten kms from Hastings.
The Norman strategy for the battle relied on the archers attacking the enemy with arrows, the infantry which would engage the enemy in combat and a final charge by the cavalry. However, the English army formed a shield wall to protect themselves, so the arrows had little effect on them. The Norman infantry then charged up the hill, but were faced by a barrage of stones, javelins and other weapons. The cavalry charge also was ineffective, as the horses shied away from the axes, swords and other weapons.
After an hour of battle, the Norman army suffered heavy casualties. Seeing this, the undisciplined English army were tempted to pursue the enemy. They broke their formations and dispersed. As they were no longer protected by the shield wall, the Norman invaders led by William, could easily attack and kill the Englishmen. By the time, the English army realised that it was counter-attacked, it was too late.
The archers in the Norman army launched an attack over the shield wall, targetting the fighters at the rear of the army. One of the arrows hit King Harold in the eye and he was killed. With their leader and many nobles killed, the fyrd or part time soldiers scattered and many fled the battlefield, resulting in a victory for the Norman army.

The Norman and English armies

The army of Duke William of Normandy  had a large number of trained warriors or mercernaries who fought with him for a share of the spoils of war.
It had a strength of 8,400 soldiers consisting of 2,200 cavalry, 1,700 archers and 4,500 infantry (men-at-arms). The archers would first attack the enemy, and would be followed by the infantry and a cavalry charge.
The strength of the English army was 7,500 and consisted entirely of infantry. Of these , about 2,000 were Housecarls, full time professional soldiers who were dedicated to the King of England and would fight to the last man. The rest of the army were 5,500 fyrd, who were part time soldiers drawn from small landholding nobility.

The Norman invasion

Normandy was a region in the  northern part of France, just across the English channel. In 911, the Viking, Rollo settled in this region after an agreement with the king of France. He was expected to protect the region from further Viking attacks.Normandy was a feudal state, where the vassals held land in return for military service.
In 1066, the Duchy of Normandy was ruled by Duke William who also though he had a right to the throne of England . He had been assembling an army to invade England, which also included contingents from other parts of France like Britanny and Flanders.
Soon after  the battle of Stamford Bridge got over, Duke William and his army crossed the English channel and landed in England on September 28, 1066 A.D.
On hearing the news of the Norman army landing on the English coast, Harold Godwinson marched south with his army to battle the Norman invaders. He halted briefly at London, to gather more people. This was a strategic mistake as his army was tired and could not match the Norman invaders at the battle of Hastings.

Battle of Stamford Bridge

King Harald of Norway (commonly known as Harald Hardrada) was one of the many claimants to the throne of England.  He believed he had a right to the throne of England based on a treaty between the King of Norway and one of earlier Kings of England.
In early September 1066, Harald invaded northern England with a fleet of 300 ships and about 15000 men. He was assisted by the estranged and exiled brother of Harold Godwinson, Tostig Godwinson. Initially the Norwegian invaders were successful and were able to capture the city of York.
The army of Harold Godwinson was rushed to the north of the country to battle the invaders. A fierce battle took place at Stamford Bridge on 16th September 1066, and the Norwegian invaders suffered a crushing defeat. King Harald of Norway was killed in the battle.  Out of the 300 ships that had reached England, only 24 could return with the injured warriors.
Though the English army was victorious in the battle of Stamford Bridge, it also suffered losses. It was in a battered and weakened state which adversely affected its capacity to repel the Norman  invasion of England.

Background

The Norman conquest of England took place in 1066. At the beginner of 1066, the Anglo Saxon ruler of England, Edward the Confessor was on his deathbed.  Since he had no children, there was no direct heir to the throne and he had not publicly designated any heir to succeed him.
After Edward the Confessor died on January 5th,1066, he was succeeded by Harold Godwinson, whose sister was married to Edward the Confessor. He claimed that Edward the Confessor had annoited him the successor on his deathbed in the presence of the queen. Since Harold Godwinson was a powerful lord in the country, he soon received the approval of the Witan, the decision making body who could decide who would be king.
This was resented by William of Normandy (a region in Northern France today). He was distantly related to Edward the Confessor and claimed that Edward the Confessor had promised him the throne  of England on his death.