B2 Arts & Culture
April 29 – May 5, 2010
The Epoch Times
The Antidote—Classic Poetry for Modern Life
An Extract from ‘Elegy Written
in a Country Churchyard’
By CHRISTOPER NIELD
Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard
Can storied urn or animated bust
Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath?
Can Honour’s voice provoke the silent dust,
Or Flattery soothe the dull cold ear of Death?
Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid
Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire;
Hands, that the rod of empire might have swayed,
Or waked to ecstasy the living lyre:
But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page,
Rich with the spoils of time, did ne’er unroll;
Chill Penury repressed their noble rage,
And froze the genial current of the soul.
Full many a gem of purest ray serene
The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear:
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.
—Thomas Gray
Walking through a graveyard, our
mood naturally deepens and our
mind goes far beyond the concerns
of the present. We read an inscription, wonder about the lives of those
now under the ground, and begin to
reflect on impermanence, meaning,
and death.
In this extract from Gray’s poem,
we find him brooding. It’s as if he
is turning in a circle, gazing on the
weeping angels and broken columns commemorating the great
and the powerful, and then sees the
“neglected spot” where the poor are
buried.
Do the “storied urn” and “animated bust” of the rich and renowned have any power to “call”
back the breath to the “mansion” of
the body? Clearly not. The “storied”
urn is one that tells tales through
images, perhaps of classical gods
or Biblical prophets. They “call” as if
alive, but who answers? No one can
overcome the everlasting democracy
of death.
Far from representing transcendent truths, the urn and bust express earthly values of “Honour”
and “Flattery.” It is too boring to
call these personifications—a dusty
term from the textbooks. No, they
are voices we hear between the lines,
voices we recognize from our own
experience: one calm, lucid, and austere; the other honeyed and false.
Both are toothless. Honour cannot “provoke” a twitch from the
silent dust, nor can Flattery make
death a thing of sweetness and light.
Gray’s questions are rhetorical, his
mood solemn, severe, and stoic.
He muses on the stories left untold, the people forgotten. Such
hearts were “once pregnant with
celestial fire.” Every heart, even the
lowliest, carries the spark of heav-
enly fire, yet many are denied the
chance to shine.
What might these “hands” have
done if given the right tools? Might
they have carried the “rod of empire”
and ruled the world? Would their
sway have brought compassion to
the machine of military might? Or
would they have belonged to another
Mozart or Beethoven, waking to “ecstasy the living lyre”?
More figures enter the scene:
“Knowledge” and “Penury” (meaning poverty). Here Gray reminds us
that no matter what our gifts might
be, without the right environment
they will wither and die. Without
Knowledge and his “ample page,”
without schooling and inspiration,
we cannot amount to anything.
Poverty breaks our spirit, our
“noble rage.” Significantly, the poorest man is seen as aristocratic: we
are judged not by our class but our
values and our courage to pursue
them if given the chance.
“Chill Penury,” which freezes the
“genial current of the soul,” is a foreshadowing of death itself: a kind of
vampire who paralyzes, stunts, and
kills.
In the final stanza, Gray heightens the pathos of the scene with exquisite tact. He draws an analogy between the waste of talent and other
examples of buried or neglected
beauty: the ray of a brilliant “gem” in
“dark unfathomed caves,” the flower
“unseen” in desert sands.
The repeated phrase “full many”
drives home a sense of overwhelming sadness. It is like the chime of
church bell, tolling the tragedy of
all those whose brief moment on
earth has flickered and faded away,
and were denied any hope of personal glory.
The passage captures the extraordinary paradox of our existence. It
is heartbreaking that people are not
liza voronin/the epoch times
given the opportunities that would
enable them to thrive, yet death is
the great leveler, where rich and
poor, kings and beggars are equal.
Somehow we must all find our own
path to the same destination.
It is impossible to read Gray’s
poem, without the concluding
words of “Middlemarch” by George
Eliot coming to mind, celebrating all
we owe to those who are now lost to
time and cannot be remembered:
“…For the growing good of the world
is partly dependent on unhistoric
acts; and that things are not so ill
with you and me as they might have
been, is half owing to the number
who lived faithfully a hidden life,
and rest in unvisited tombs.”
Thomas Gray (1716–1771) was an
English poet and classical scholar.
Christopher Nield is a poet living in
London.