361-1 In some of our American towns and cities a curfew bell is rung as a signal that the children must leave the streets and go to their homes. Many years ago it was the custom in English villages to ring a bell at nightfall as a signal for people to cover their fires with ashes to preserve till morning, and as a signal for bed. The word curfew, in fact, is from the French, and means cover fire.361-2 The word knell suggests death, and gives the first mournful note to the poem.361-3 The sheep are shut up for the night in the folds or pens. What are the tinklings? Why should they be called drowsy?362-4 The poem is supposed to have been written in the yard of Stoke-Pogis church, a little building with a square tower, the whole covered with a riotous growth of ivy vines. The church is in the country, not many miles from Windsor Castle; and even to this day the beautiful landscape preserves the rural charms it had in Gray’s time. We must not suppose that Gray actually sat in the churchyard and wrote his lines. As a matter of fact, he was a very careful and painstaking writer, and for eight years was at work on this poem, selecting each word so that it should express just the shade of meaning he wanted and give the perfect melody he sought. However, he did begin the poem at Stoke in October or November of 1742 and continued it there in November, 1749; but it was finished in Cambridge in June, 1750.362-5 Reign here means dominion or possessions. Why is the bird called a moping owl? Why is her reign solitary? What word is understood after such in the third line of this stanza?362-6 Rude means uneducated, uncultured, not ill-mannered.362-7 A clarion is a loud, clear-sounding trumpet.362-8 In the church are the tombs of the wealthy and titled of the neighborhood, and in the building and on the walls are monuments that tell the virtues of the lordly dead. It is outside, however, under the sod, in their narrow cells, that the virtuous poor, the real subjects of the poet’s thoughts, lie in quiet slumbers.362-9 What evening cares has the busy housewife? Was she making the clothes of her children, knitting, mending, darning, after the supper dishes were put away?363-10 Where were the children? Were they waiting for their father’s return? To whom would they run to tell of his coming?363-11 The glebe is the turf. Why should it be called stubborn?363-12 Jocund means joyful.363-13 The word Ambition begins with a capital letter because Gray speaks of ambition as though it were a person. The line means, “Let not ambitious persons speak lightly of the work the rude forefathers did.”363-14 The inevitable hour (death) alike awaits the boast of heraldry, the pomp of power, and all that beauty, all that wealth e’er gave.363-15 This is perhaps the most famous stanza in the poem. The following story is told of General Wolfe as he was leading his troops to the daring assault on Quebec in 1759: “At past midnight, when the heavens were hung black with clouds, and the boats were floating silently back with the tide to the intended landing-place at the chosen ascent to the Plains of Abraham, he repeated in low tones to the officers around him this touching stanza of Gray’s Elegy. ‘Now, gentlemen,’ said Wolfe, ‘I would rather be the author of that poem than the possessor of the glory of beating the French to-morrow!’ He fell the next day, and expired just as the shouts of the victory of the English fell upon his almost unconscious ears.”364-16 Now, an aisle is the passageway between the pews or the seats in a church or other public hall: in the poem it means the passageways running to the sides of the main body of the church.364-17 A storied urn is an urn-shaped monument on which are inscribed the virtues of the dead. Why should a bust be called animated? What is the mansion of the fleeting breath?364-18 In this instance provoke means what it originally meant in the Latin language; namely, call forth.364-19 The line means, “Some heart once filled with the heavenly inspiration.”364-20 A poet or musician is said to sing, and the lyre is the instrument with which the ancients accompanied their songs. To wake to ecstasy the living lyre is to write the noblest poetry, to sing the most inspired songs.364-21 The books of the ancients were rolls of manuscripts. Did any of those persons resting in this neglected spot ever write great poetry, rule empires or sing inspiring songs? If not, what prevented them from doing such things if they had the ability?365-22 At first this stanza was written thus:

“Some village Cato, who with dauntless breast
The little tyrant of his fields withstood;
Some mute, inglorious Tully here may rest;
Some Caesar guiltless of his country’s blood.”

It is interesting to notice that at his first writing Gray selected three of the famous men of antiquity, but in his revision he substituted the names of three of his own countrymen. Who were Hampden, Milton and Cromwell?365-23 The three stanzas beginning at this point make but one sentence. Turned into prose the sentence would read: “Their lot forbade them to command the applause of listening senates, to despise the threats of pain and ruin, to scatter plenty o’er a smiling land, and read their history in a nation’s eyes: their lot not only circumscribed their growing virtues but confined their crimes as well; it forbade them to wade through slaughter to a throne and shut the gates of mercy on mankind, to hide the struggling pangs of conscious truth, to quench the blushes of ingenuous shame, and to heap the shrine of Luxury and Pride with incense kindled at the Muse’s flame.”365-24 This line means that they could not become rulers by fighting and killing their fellowmen as Napoleon did not long afterward.366-25 Many of the English poets wrote in praise of the wealthy and titled in order to be paid or favored by the men they flattered. Gray thinks that such conduct is disgraceful, and rejoices that the rude forefathers of the hamlet were prevented from writing poetry for such an end. The Greeks thought poetry was inspired by one of the Muses, and genius is often spoken as a flame.366-26 Madding means excited or raging.366-27 The frail memorials were simple headstones, similar to those one may see in any country graveyard in America. On such headstones may often be seen shapeless sculpture that would almost provoke a smile, were it not for its pathetic meaning. A picture of Stoke-Pogis churchyard shows many stories of the ordinary type.366-28 The rhymes were uncouth in the sense that they were unlearned and unpolished.366-29 What facts were inscribed on the headstones? Elegy here means praise. Where were the texts strewn? Why were the texts called holy? What was the nature of the texts? Can you think of one that might have been used?367-30 This is one of the difficult stanzas, and there is some dispute as to its exact meaning, owing to the phrase, to dumb forgetfulness a prey. Perhaps the correct meaning is shown in the following prose version: “For who has ever died (resigned this pleasing, anxious being, left the warm precincts of this cheerful day), a prey to dumb forgetfulness, and cast not one longing, lingering look behind?”367-31 Thee refers to the poet, Gray himself. The remainder of the poem is personal. Summed up briefly it means that perhaps a sympathetic soul may some day come to inquire as to the poet’s fate, and will be told by some hoary-headed swain a few of the poet’s habits, and then will have pointed out to him the poet’s own grave, on which may be read his epitaph.368-32 Due means appropriate or proper.368-33 As first written, the poem contained the following stanza, placed before the epitaph; but in the final revision Gray rejected it as unworthy. It seems a very critical taste that would reject such lines as these:

“There scatter’d oft, the earliest of the year,
By hands unseen are show’rs of violets found:
The redbreast loves to build and warble there,
And little footsteps lightly print the ground.”