Within, a stag-horned sumach grows,
Fern-leaved, with spikes of red.
Under the large window of the left gable-end, the one nearest the road, and up five or more feet from the ground, is a marble slab, some fifteen inches high and two feet long, which bears the following inscription:—
Opposite to this stone, in the same tomb upon which he has so feelingly recorded his grief at the loss of a beloved parent, are deposited the remains of Thomas Gray, the author of the Elegy written in a Country Churchyard. He was buried August 6, 1771.
The mother was memorable for her sorrows and her devotion to her family. Her husband was selfish, morose, passionate, and tyrannical. The mother kept a little china-shop to help educate her son. He wrote, for her tombstone in this burial-ground, as follows:—
Here sleep the remains of Dorothy Gray, widow: the careful, tender mother of many children, one of whom alone had the misfortune to survive her.
Beautiful in all its conditions was this churchyard; and while we were here the birds sang merrily, and the sounds of summer and the odor of a new fresh vegetation made it a paradise complete. That quiet and repose, usual to a spot so removed from the "busy haunts of men," this hamlet of the dead, seemed to underlie all, and the "calm retreat" was all we had anticipated.
As we pass out of the gate and into the outlying field, to the left is a stately stone monument, not long ago built to the poet's memory. It is of good design, and on it are befitting quotations from his poetry; but after all we were sorry to see it. The churchyard, the church itself, the ivy-mantled tower, the Elegy, these are his better monument. He needs no other. It were foolish to "gild refinèd gold or paint the lily." It is well to say of these, as was said for the great architect of St. Paul's, Sir Christopher Wren, "If you seek his monument, look around you."
It should be stated, in passing, that another spot claims, and with some little show of reason, that it, and not this, is the famous "country churchyard;" but, after giving thought to the matter, it appears that till new evidence to the contrary is produced, this spot will have the honors.
As the Elegy has made this place celebrated, and immortalized its name as well as that of its composer, it may be well to say that when Gray had completed it, he handed his manuscript to friends, but he himself doubted its merits, and conscientiously thought it weak and too sentimental. Others, however, saw its value, and, to the author's astonishment, so great was its fame, that on being published, it was soon translated into Greek, Latin, Italian, Portuguese, French, German, and even into Hebrew.