Elegy Written In A Country Churchyard Lyrics

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.

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About

Genius Annotation

Thomas Gray broods in a graveyard and speculates that his countrymen who lived and died in the fields, working to make ends meet, could potentially have been great men of the world had they been born into a better circumstances. His poem was a literary sensation on its publication in 1751 and remains frequently quoted to this day.

It is likely that Gray wrote the elegy in the churchyard of St Giles, Stoke Poges in Buckinghamshire, a parish of the Church of England. At the time of writing the poem, Gray was visiting his aunt who lived in the village. Although he died some distance away in Cambridge, Gray was buried in the churchyard at his request next to his mother.

Structure
This long poem is written in regular quatrains, that is four lined stanzas. The rhyme scheme is ABAB throughout. The metre is iambic pentameter, that is five metrical feet or iambs per line, where a iamb comprises one unstressed followed by one stressed syllable. The effect is to give the poem a dignified, elegant ‘tread’, suitable for the profound subject matter. The lines are predominantly end-stopped.

Language
The voice is that of the narrator, who may be the poet as well. It is told in the third person through most of the poem until, two-thirds of the way through, the narrator refers to ‘thee’, presumably addressing the reader, though some interpret this as the third party speaker addressing the poet himself.

The predominant imagery is of countryside, appropriate to the subject, with vivid descriptions; for example, ‘full many a flow'r is born to blush unseen…’ and the ‘cock’s shrill clarion…’

He also refers to abstract, capitalised concepts like ‘Ambition’ and ‘Grandeur’, important in that they are absent from the lives of toiling country dwellers.

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