[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.”