Time honored poetry (1500-1800) written in the established forms and structures are often considered too formal, too demanding or too obscure for today’s students to read and study. Much of this poetry employs allusions to Greek mythology and obliquely metaphorical language that confuse and frustrate them. Consequently, the classic poets from the 16th to 18th centuries such as Shakespeare, Donne, Milton, Marvell and Pope are increasingly neglected in schools. Even the more accessible Romantic poets of the 19th century, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, and Keats, once very popular subjects in English classrooms, are also fading from the English curriculum. Finally, the modern masters Yeats, Eliot, Frost and Stevens, who require as much effort to understand as the classic poems do, make fewer appearances in the classrooms.
What has replaced the great poems of the past are contemporary poems, usually written in free verse that address themes depicting everyday experiences that students can identify with. As worthwhile as some of these poems might be, studying classic poems rewards both teachers and students with profound universal truths in language artistically eloquent.
The classic poem, Thomas Gray’s Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, is one of the richest in the English language. Even though it was published against his wishes, it is a poem that should be read by all students. The poem has been admired for its reflections on the universal experiences of memory and mortality and praised by readers. It is a somber, evocative and powerful meditation on human experience:
If you would like to listen to the poem as you read, here is an audio of it.
Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard
1
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.
2
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;
3
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.
4
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.
5
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.
6
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.
7
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!
8
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.
9
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.
10
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.
11
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?
12
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.
13
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.
14
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.
15
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.
16
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,
17
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,
18
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.
19
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.
20
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.
21
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.
22
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?
23
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.
24
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,
25
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.
26
"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.
27
"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.
28
"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;
29
"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
30
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.
31
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.
32
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.
The 32 stanzas that comprise the poem begins with Gray’s observation of the landscape, then proceeds through a meditation on the circumstances of life, on the inevitability of death, and on the necessity of religious faith.
In the first four stanzas Gray’s speaker listens to the tolling “curfew,” watches the “lowing herds,” sees the farmer head homeward and then finds himself isolated in the darkening evening. He is greeted by the “droning” sound of the “beetle,” and the bells “tinkling” in the “distant folds.” In the “ivy-mantle tower” the “owl” is disturbed by his presence and “does to the moon complain.” These first three stanzas evoke a charming quality to the scene that is countered by the speaker’s emotional response, which is voiced in the last line of the first stanza: “And leaves the world to darkness and me.” The speaker evokes more than a sense of solitude; thoughts echo a profound loneliness, an isolation from humanity. He then turns to the churchyard, surveys the grounds, which are punctuated by “many a mouldering heap” in which “The rude Forefathers of the hamlet sleep.” The sight of the graves initiates the speaker’s meditation on the simple dignity of villagers.
Through stanzas 5-7, the speaker visualizes the activities the “Forefathers” participated in. He sees the local resident farmers and inhabitants perform the work that give authentic meaning to their lives and that clothe these men and women in a simple and pure dignity.
Contrasting with the rustic elements in 5-8 are the “Proud” aristocratic class in stanzas 8-11. Gray warns the upper class, who when they die are memorialized ornately in grand mausoleums or entombed within “fretted vaults[s]” where the “pealing anthem swells the note of praise, that in the end death’s scythe harvests them the same as it does the anonymous poor. The question that ends stanza 11 resonates in its leveling, incontestable power over all humans regardless of their nobility, status or wealth:
Can storied urn or animated bust Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath? Can Honour's voice provoke the silent dust, Or Flattery soothe the dull cold ear of Death?
The “rude Forefathers,” who lived and died in obscurity, nevertheless might have been as great as the great men of the age. What limited their “achievements” in life were not their potential, but the circumstance into which they were born, lived and died. As Gray tells us in stanzas 12-15, like men who accomplished extraordinary deeds, the forgotten poor could have been “pregnant with celestial fire,” “sway’d” the “rod of empire,” or even “walked to ecstasy the lyre” as a poet. Like a “flower [that] is born to blush unseen,” they might have become renowned for their poetry, perhaps another Milton, but for their situation in life.
Though their poverty circumscribed the "growing virtues" of the rustics, it also lessened the likelihood of their "crimes," as Gray notes in stanzas 16-19. Their simple lives separated them “Far from the madding crowd’s ignoble strife” and preserved “the noiseless tenour” of their existence.
In stanzas 20-21, Gray turns back to the churchyard headstones and wonders about the “unlettered Muse,” who etched the headstones with “elegy,” “many a holy text,” to memorialize those “rude Forefathers” sleeping in their “narrow cell[s].” In Stanza 23, Gray becomes emotional himself as he thinks of the men and women who grieve their loved ones.
His response to the churchyard causes him to reflect on his own mortality, and Gray introduces in stanza 25 a new speaker, a “hoary-headed swain” who, in stanzas 25-29, will remember him as a “woeful-wan, like one forlorn, / Or crazed with care, or cross’d in hopeless love.” After the swain elegizes Gray, The Epitaph, stanzas 30-32, closes the poem portraying Gray as a humble “Youth to Fortune and Fame unknown,” who ultimately place his faith in “The bosom of his Father and his God.”
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