Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard

First anonymously published in 1751, “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard” is by far Thomas Gray’s most famous poem, though he didn’t write many poems. If Gray were a pop band, he’d be considered a one-hit wonder. Nonetheless, “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard” is among the most important and influential elegies ever written, and among the most well-regarded poems written in 18th century England.

As the title suggests, the poem takes place in a graveyard in the English countryside. The speaker lingers in the graveyard long after dark and contemplates the lives and deaths of the lower-class farmers buried there. The poem concludes with the speaker imagining his own death. In this imagining, a visitor to the cemetery asks a white-haired shepherd, or “swain,” about the poet. The shepherd tells the visitor what little he knows of the poet’s life and burial, then points to the poet’s tombstone and tells the visitor to read the inscription there (the shepherd is uneducated and cannot read). The poem ends with the epitaph. 

Poet Biography

Thomas Gray was born in England in 1716 and died in 1771. He was educated first at Eton, then at Cambridge. Gray lived in Cambridge most of his adult life, serving in varied academic posts.