Oft as the woodlark piped her farewell song,
With wistful eyes pursue the setting sun.
Preceding the epitaph was the following beautiful allusion to the rustic tomb of the village scholar:—
There scattered oft, the earliest of the year,
By hands unseen, are showers of violets found;
The redbreast loves to build and warble there,
And little footsteps lightly print the ground.
Gray began the composition of this exquisite poem in 1742; but so carefully did he proceed, that it remained on his hands for seven years. It is believed to have been mostly written within the precincts of the church at Granchester, about two miles from Cambridge; and the curfew in the poet’s mind was accordingly the great bell of St. Mary’s, tolled regularly every evening at nine o’clock in Gray’s time and since.
As a piece of finished composition, possessing all the elements of true poetry, in conception, in illustration, in the mechanical structure of the verse, in the simplicity of the style, in the touching nature of the ideas, the Elegy won from the outset a fame which, as a century of time has but served to make it more certain and more illustrious, is likely to last as long as mankind have the feelings of mortality.
As illustrations of the popularity of this poem, we may cite two historical incidents that will be interesting and acceptable to the reader.