ENGLAND

How often to the European traveler from our own shores the cry of "Land in sight" means a lighthouse on some western point in England's coast line. The news brings every passenger to the ship's rail. Commonplace though it may be, there is after all a veritable romance for even the most blasé.

The ruined castles and rolling roads, the green fields and thatched cottages mean home to some, and for those returning from a distant land the lines following bring a deeper sense of the happiness of being once more in their native land.

No lovelier hills than thine have laid
My tired thoughts to rest:

No peace of lovelier valleys made
Like peace within my breast.

Thine are the woods whereto my soul,
Out of the noontide beam,
Flees for a refuge green and cool

And tranquil as a dream.

Thy breaking seas like trumpets peal;

Thy clouds-how oft have I

Watched their bright towers of silence steal
Into infinity!

My heart within me faints to roam
In thought even far from thee:
Thine be the grave whereto I come,
And thine my darkness be.

WALTER de la Mare.

ELEGY WRITTEN IN A COUNTRY

CHURCHYARD

Many a King and Emperor, statesman and philanthropist, will be forgotten long before the quiet scholar of Pembroke Hall. Thomas Gray planned many a great poem, but actually finished only one or two. When he died he left many memoranda, and two score or more fragments of fine things, but what else? And yet we, travelers from a distant land, come to his tomb because he left us the "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard." At his own request, he was buried near the Church at Stoke Poges. It is fitting that he who has sung so touchingly of the dead sleeping here, should find near them his last resting place. As we go through the park on the way to the church, it is well to recall the verse that Gray originally wrote for the Elegy, but later discarded:

"There scatter'd 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."

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Who can really appreciate the poem without knowing the quaint place which inspired it? "Those rugged elms,' "that yew tree's shade," "the frail memorials,' "with uncouth rhimes and shapeless sculpture," are here. We can still look upon "the ivy-mantled tower," even though we cannot hear the "moping owl" "to the moon complain." Even today, in this quiet English countryside, “all the air a solemn stillness holds"; those who will wait till eventide, will know why the poet wrote: "The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea." Read the poem underneath the yew tree and you will not grudgingly admit that you have enjoyed one of the most delightful visits England can vouchsafe you.

The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,

The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea, The ploughman homeward plods his weary way, And leaves the world to darkness and to me.

Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight, And all the air a solemn stillness holds,

Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard 21 Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight, And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds;

Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tower
The moping owl does to the moon complain
Of such as, wand'ring near her secret bower,
Molest her ancient solitary reign.

Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade, Where heaves the turf in many a mouldering heap,

Each in his narrow cell for ever laid,

The rude Forefathers of the hamlet sleep.

The breezy call of incense-breathing Morn,

The swallow twitt'ring from the straw-built shed,

The cock's shrill clarion, or the echoing horn,

No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed.

For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn,
Or busy housewife ply her evening care;

No children run to lisp their sire's return,
Or climb his knee the envied kiss to share.

Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield,

Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke; How jocund did they drive their team afield! How bowed the woods beneath their sturdy stroke!

Let not Ambition mock their useful toil,
Their homely joys, and destiny obscure;
Nor Grandeur hear, with a disdainful smile,
The short and simple annals of the poor.

22 Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard

The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power,
And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave,
Await alike th' inevitable hour.

The paths of glory lead but to the grave.

Nor you, ye Proud, impute to these the fault,
If Mem'ry o'er their tomb no trophies raise,
Where thro' the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault
The pealing anthem swells the note of praise.

Can storied urn or animated bust

Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath? Can Honour's voice provoke the silent dust, Or Flatt'ry 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.

Some village-Hampden, that with dauntless breast
The little tyrant of his fields withstood;
Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest,
Some Cromwell guiltless of his country's blood.

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Th' applause of listening senates to command,
The threats of pain and ruin to despise,
To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land,

And read their history in a nation's eyes,

Their lot forbad; nor circumscribed alone
Their growing virtues, but their crimes confined;
Forbad to wade through slaughter to a throne,
And shut the gates of mercy on mankind,

The struggling pangs of conscious truth to hide,
To quench the blushes of ingenuous shame,
Or heap the shrine of Luxury and Pride

With incense kindled at the Muse's flame.

Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife,
Their sober wishes never learned to stray;
Along the cool sequestered vale of life

They kept the noiseless tenor of their way.

Yet ev❜n these bones from insult to protect
Some frail memorial still erected nigh,

With uncouth rhimes and shapeless sculpture decked,

Implores the passing tribute of a sigh.

Their name, their years, spelt by th' unlettered Muse,
The place of fame and elegy supply;

And many a holy text around she strews,
That teach the rustic moralist to die.

For who, to dumb Forgetfulness a prey,
This pleasing anxious being e'er resigned,
Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day,
Nor cast one longing ling'ring look behind?