Horace Walpole, a fellow-student at both Eton and Cambridge, began a tour of the Continent which lasted till 1741.

1741-1754. — Gray's father died in 1741, after having squandered nearly all his fortune. Accordingly the next year the poet's mother moved to the home of her widowed sister, at the village of Stoke Pogis, in southern Buckinghamshire, and was soon joined by her son. Here Gray wrote his first English poems, the Ode to Spring, the Eton College ode, and the beginnings of the Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, the latter probably suggested by the churchyard near his new home in Stoke Pogis. During the winter of this same year, 1742, he returned to Cambridge, took the degree of Bachelor of Civil Law, and settled down to a dreamy life of study in the libraries of the university, varied only by vacation visits to his mother, and occasional trips abroad. In 1747 his Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College was published, but it met with little favor. The Elegy, on which he had been working at intervals since 1742, appeared in 1750. Three years later his mother died, and he became more than ever the solitary recluse of the Cambridge libraries.

1754-1771. From 1754 to 1757 Gray produced some few short poems, among them his well-known Pindaric Odes (see INTRODUCTION). In 1757 he was offered the laureateship, an honor which he refused. Not long after this he began to write translations and imitations of the poetry of the Celts and the Norsemen, translations which had a decided influence in the development of the new Romantic movement. The remaining years of his life were even more uneventful than those which had preceded. In 1768 he was given the professorship of Modern History and Modern Languages at Cambridge, but he never delivered a lecture. In 1771 the "shy, sensitive, secluded scholar " died, and was buried beside his mother in the "country churchyard " of Stoke Pogis.

According to Gray's own statement, he aimed at a style with "extreme conciseness of expression, yet pure, perspicuous, and musical." In this he has succeeded so admirably that almost any one of his few poems is well worth the reader's acquaintance. On the whole, the most enjoyable are probably his simpler "odes," such as that on Eton College and the famous Elegy which follows. The romantic quality which these poems show is manifest not merely in the breaking away from the heroic couplet, but in the poet's sympathy with low-born and natural life, simple emotions, and homely scenes.

ELEGY

WRITTEN IN A COUNTRY CHURCHYARD

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

Now fades the glimmering 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.

30

The boast of heraldry, the pomp of pow'r,

And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave, Await 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 isle 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 sooth the dull cold ear of Death?

35

40

Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid

45

Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire;

Hands, that the rod of empire might have sway'd,
Or wak'd to extasy the living lyre.

But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page

Rich with the spoils of time, did ne'er unroll;

50

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 flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.

55

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.

60

K

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 forbad: nor circumscrib'd alone

Their growing virtues, but their crimes confin'd;
Forbad 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 rhimes and shapeless sculpture deck'd,
Implores the passing tribute of a sigh.

80

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.

85

90

For thee, who mindful of th' unhonour'd Dead
Dost in these lines their artless tales 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;

95

100

105

110

"The next, with dirges due in sad array,

Slow thro' the church-way path we saw him born.

Approach and read (for thou canst read) the lay
Grav'd on the stone beneath yon aged thorn."

115

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 gained from Heaven ('twas all he wish'd) a friend,

120