An Elegy Wrote in a Country Church Yard (Unabridged‪)‬

An Elegy Wrote in a Country Church Yard

By Thomas Gray

Narrated by Denis Daly

Today Thomas Gray is remembered almost solely for this melancholy meditation on the inevitability of death and the insignificance of fame. Samuel Johnson thought little of Gray's other works, but found the Elegy to be "abounding with images which find a mirror in every mind and with sentiments to which every bosom returns an echo."

The poem was originally thought to have been inspired by the death of Gray's close friend, Richard West, but modern critics think this to be unlikely.

Retiring by nature, Gray did not want the elegy to be published, but his hand was forced by an unscrupulous editor who planned to publish the poem without permission.

The polished elegance of the versification and the inclusion of lines whose fame has become proverbial have ensured that the poem has retained its appeal over the centuries.