Elegy Written in A Country
Churchyard
by Thomas Gray
(Summary)
The poem begins by describing the approach of
evening with its darkness and its silence, which is unbroken except for some
such sounds, as those of the droning of the beetle, the tinkling of sheep’s
bells and the hooting of the owl. This darkness is conducive to mournful
thoughts. Then it proceeds to speak of the poor people – the ancestors of the
rustic population of the neighbourhood, who lay deep buried under the elm and
the yew in the country churchyard. Nothing can wake them from their everlasting
sleep. They can no longer enjoy the family gathering round the fireplace when
they returned home after the day’s work. These poor villagers did the humble work
of cultivation. The poet, then, requests the big and the great not to despise
these poor peasants for their humble but useful work.
He
also requests them not to blame the poor peasants for their having no monuments
erected over their graves inside the church, because, according to Gray, the
poet, monuments of all kinds, tombstones with inscriptions, statues, honours,
tributes are helpless to recall the dead back to life. Speaking of these peasants,
the poet says, that some of these poor peasants could have been
great
rulers or statesmen, famous musicians or poets, if they had not been ignorant
and poor. Yet cases of potential greatness are common enough, for beautiful
pearls lie at the bottom unseen in the wilderness. This country churchyard may
contain the grave of one who could become a popular hero like Hampden or an
immortal poet like Milton or a military genius like Cromwell, but their humble
lot denied them a chance of becoming great orators or great martyrs or great
benefactors of their country. But, then, their humble lot, while preventing the
development of their virtues, limited the nature and extent of their vices as
well, so that they were saved from becoming bloody usurpers or merciless
tyrants.
It
saved them likewise from showing a callous disregard of truth and honesty and
from becoming mean flatterers of the great. These gravestones of the poor show
that their desire to be remembered after death is a desire common to all men.
After Gray’s death too some people will talk of him, some may be curious even
to visit his grave and to read the epitaph on his tomb.
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