`ME THOUGHTS I HEARD ONE CALLING, CHILD!

': HERBERT'S `THE COLLAR' Critics agree that George Herbert's poetry is very complex and subtle, and of all of his poems few have received more critical attention than "The Collar." Like many of Herbert's poems, "The Collar" has been put through the various critical sieves that modem critics have invented;[1] yet they have by no means exhausted the rich possibilities inherent in the poem, especially its biblical dimensions. I am particularly interested in this essay in demonstrating that in "The Collar," a relatively short lyric poem, Herbert has articulated in very precise theological terms an attitude toward religious service that far transcends mere pietistic platitudes or conventional religious posturing, and I should like to begin by commenting briefly on the title of the poem. Herbert is one of the first poets to use the titles of his poems as an integral part of their meaning. The title "The Collar," of course, is an emblematic image that informs our understanding of the whole poem. If the poem were untitled and one were asked to assign a title to it, I doubt if anyone would come up with "The Collar," since never does the word appear in the poem. Yet, as we know, the title contains a very complex pun.[2] The speaker of the poem, one who is, for most of the poem, in a state of rebellion, is obviously a priest who wears a collar that he wishes to discard. He strikes "the board" (which we later discover is, in fact, the altar, the symbol of the priesthood) and cries "No more"(1). One is reminded also of the slave's collar, which likewise is fitting because the speaker, for most of the poem, thinks of himself as a slave or servant who has served a demanding lord and who wishes to free himself from what he considers degrading and numbing servitude. Perhaps Herbert is also alluding to an animal collar since in his rebellious state the speaker gives up his rational soul and functions on the level of passion or the "animal soul": "But as I rav'd and grew more fierce and wilde/At every word" (3334). Thirdly, in the seventeenth century "collar" was pronounced very similarly to the word "choler"; and, of course, except for the last four lines of the poem, the speaker is indeed choleric in his rebellion. Thus, the pun in the title not only plays with the various kinds of "collars" that have kept the speaker in bondage, it also announces the tone of most of the poem. But, most important, the word "collar" was pronounced very much like "caller" in seventeenth-century English; and, above all, "The Collar" is a calling poem, one in which the speaker recognizes an interior calling by God: "Me thoughts I heard one calling, Child!/And I reply'd, My Lord" (35-36). "Me thoughts" is a very important phrase because it makes clear that the speaker does not, in fact, actually hear the voice or call of God directly, but rather he comes to an interior recognition of that call. Thus the poem reflects the experience of many religious people who believe they have heard God's inner call; in other words, the drama of the poem is not removed from the level of ordinary experience into something highly mystical or mysteriously transcendendent that ordinary people can only admire from a distance at best. But, the crucial point to remember is that the speaker in the poem is not

called "George" or "friend" or "servant"; he is specifically called "Child" (35). And, contrary to our expectation, he does not respond with "Father" or "good parent" but with the theologically appropriate phrase, "My Lord" (36). My contention is that "The Collar" is, above all else, a "calling poem," or, in other words, an "election poem." Until the speaker recognizes the inner call of "Child," he remains bitter, angry, rebellious, and choleric; but once he comes to understand what "child" means in biblical terms, he redefines his relationship to God, who is calling him to a life of service and obedience, and wholeheartedly responds, "My Lord," to show his complete submission to God and his willingness to accept all that is implied by that submission. To have responded "Father," would have softened and even trivialized the conclusion of the poem and turned it into something much less powerful. In Scripture the issuance of a call by God suggests election and also the immense importance that naming has in both the Old and New Testaments. For instance, in Genesis (1:5) we are told that God called or named "the light Day and the darkness he called Night," thereby showing His power over them. Later on, Adam names all of the animals. Now, even the most committed fundamentalist surely does not think that Adam stood there in Eden, scratching his primitive head, trying to think up the names of all the animals in creation--all in Hebrew, one presumes, or was it in Latin? That would have been quite a feat considering the rather elementary nature of language at the time. What the scriptural narrator means is simply that Adam has power and authority over the animals as God has power and authority over the cosmos. There are numerous examples in the Old Testament of specific naming. Abram, for instance, once he assumes the role of father of his people, was called Abraham by God, thereby indicating that he must now assume a new vocation and play a new role in salvational history. We have only to think of the various taboos that surrounded the use of the name "Yahweh" to realize the importance and the sacredness that Jews felt about names. In the New Testament, the names of John and Jesus are ritualistically prescribed. Saul, once he ceases to persecute the early Church, becomes Paul, as Simon, Son of Jonah, before him became Peter, the rock upon which Christ would build his Church. Even today, the Christian practice is to give a specific name to each newly baptized person, indicating his or her specific identity in the Christian community. The assigning of an additional name to one receiving the sacrament of confirmation in Catholicism indicates that the person is no longer a child in his or her religion but is now ready to make an adult and freely chosen personal commitment to God, thereby taking on a new role in the drama of salvation. The practice of choosing a new name upon entering into the religious life as a nun or monk comes from a recognition that the person has given up a particular identity in the Christian community and has taken on a new one. Perhaps the human urge toward naming explains, in part at least, the modern scientific urge to assign names to things, as if to name and to label something--with symbols (words)--actually gives one power over it. So too, in "The Collar," in this "calling poem," we have a relationship, as we shall see, a very precise relationship, established by the inner call of "Child" and by the speaker's specific response, "My Lord." This conclusion of the poem is in no way a

sentimental reversal in which the tension of the poem is somehow dissipated by mere emotional pleading. Although I wish to focus on the last four lines of "The Collar," a few comments on the preceding thirty-two lines are necessary to set the stage for the powerful conclusion of the poem. As I read the poem, there is only one speaker. In lines 1-16, under the influence of his "heart" ("Not so, my heart" 17), the speaker complains of his state of servitude and proclaims in no uncertain terms that he wishes to free himself from his unbearable bondage "I will abroad" (2). In lines 17-26, that other side of the speaker, that part that recognizes when one is unreasonable and out of control, answers the objections of the heart by stating that there is "fruit" (17) and tells the speaker "thou hast hands" (18), thereby attempting to explain away the bitterness and rebelliousness that the speaker experiences. But, in lines 27-32, the heart responds, now more vehemently and more bitterly than before; there is a kind of intense anger and urgency in these lines that is characteristic of one who realizes that he is losing an argument and resents his own stupidity and his inability to remain calm ("Away; take heed;/I will abroad./Call in thy deaths head there: tie up thy fears./He that forbears/To suit and serve his need,/Deserves his load" (27-32). This highly emotional response to the heart is necessary if the final four lines are to have their intended impact. The point is that calm reasonableness will not resolve the speaker's conflict; in fact, it serves to irritate him even more and elicits from him more despair than ever. The choleric response of the speaker in these lines emphasizes the fact that the resolution of the speaker's dilemma will come only from a "call," the call of "Child," which brings him to a full realization of exactly what his relationship is with God. The use of the past tense in "The Collar" is important, for it shows that, for all of the frenzy and excited rhetoric and rough form (free verse) in the first 32 lines, the poem is actually one of reflection, discernment, and analysis, a dramatic moment relived and reexperienced with an intensely emotional and highly moving response. Within the narrative framework, Herbert describes perhaps a personal history of one moment of outburst, but he also suggests that the speaker of his poem recapitulates the history of all men and women who have, through the ages, encountered the same God. In "The Collar," as in most of his other poems, Herbert is not interested in pouring out his individual experience as something unique, but rather he wants to articulate a very precise theological point in intimate and personal terms. He tells us in the letter he sent to Nicholas Ferrar (Works xxvii) that the poems in The Temple present a picture of "the many spiritual conflicts" that passed between God and his soul before he could subject his will to that of Jesus, his Master; but, for Herbert, these "conflicts" are significant only in so far as they demonstrate the love of God for man and man's good fortune in being able, after some anguish and perhaps some failing, to respond wholeheartedly to that love. As I have already suggested, "Me thoughts" (1. 35) that begins the resolution of the poem is crucial to a correct understanding of "The Collar." It highlights the notion that the resolution, the calling and naming that occurs, is not from without but is a new interior understanding of the speaker's relationship to God. Up to this point in the poem, through

all of his raving, the speaker has assumed that he is a slave or degraded servant of the Lord and regards his service and suffering as intolerable and fruitless. But with the call "Child," in a flash he recognizes his error, perceives clearly his relationship to the Lord, and accepts wholeheartedly his Christian destiny. All is resolved, therefore, not in a sentimental or "pious" submission, but in precise theological terms. To view the resolution in any but biblical terms would be to cheapen or, at least, to soften its very strong conclusion. For the word "Child" designates the particular relationship that Christ came to establish between God and man. Throughout the New Testament,[3] the title "children" is a common one for Christians. For example, in Romans 8:16, we read, "The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God"; in Ephesians 5:1, St. Paul writes, "Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children," and again in Galatians 4:4, he says, "Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a Son: and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ." Christ himself warns his followers, "Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein" (Mark 10:15). In the Greek translation of the Bible, a translation that Herbert knew very well, there are two separate words used for the Hebrew word "ebed" (servant)--"doulos" (doulos) and "pais" (pialphaIs). A "doulos" is a slave, a bondsman, one in a servile condition, and is used in the pejorative sense as in "slave of sin"; a "pais," on the other hand, is an elected servant, a favored servant, or a child that stands in an intimate relationship with the Lord and is equal to "garcon" in French and "puer" in Latin.[4] In the Old Testament Servant Songs (Isaiah 42:1-4; 49:1-6; 50:13 to 53:12), which New Testament commentators interpreted as a prophetic definition of the kind of man the Messiah would be, namely, an elected servant, the word "pais" is used to describe him. In the four "oracles" concerning the servant of God, we read, "Behold my servant ["pais"], whom I uphold; mine elect, in whom my soul delighteth" (Isaiah 41:1); "It is a light thing that thou shouldest be my servant ["pais"] to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the preserved of Israel" (Isaiah 49:6); "Who is among you that feareth the Lord, that obeyeth the voice of his servant ["pais"], that walketh in darkness, and hath no light?"; and "Behold, my servant ["pais"] shall deal prudently, he shall be exalted and extolled, and be very high" (Isaiah 52:13). In the New Testament, when Christ is called "the child" or "son" or "servant of God" (for example, in Acts 3:13,26: "His Son Jesus"; in Acts 4:27,30: "thy holy child Jesus"), again the word used to describe his relationship to His Father is "pais," although in Philippians 2:7, it is said that "he took upon him the form of a servant ["doulos"], and was made in the likeness of men." In Matthew 12:17-18 we read, "That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying, Behold my servant ["pais"], whom I have chosen, my beloved, in whom my soul is well pleased." At the baptism of Jesus in the River Jordan, Matthew again adapts the words of Isaiah and renders the word "pals" as "Son," "And to a voice from heaven saying, This is my beloved Son ["pais"], whom I am well pleased" (3:17), thus indicating that Christ, the elected servant-son of God, will fulfill the messianic promise through obedient sonship to His Father.

From a theological viewpoint, Christ is the son or child of the Father, not only by the relationship that he had prior to his Incarnation but also in his humanity by that relationship that He effected in his carrying out the Father's command in perfect obedience to redeem mankind by freely giving up His own will and by fully accepting a sacrificial death on the cross. This profound theological relationship of Christ to the Suffering Servant in Isaiah would be familiar, of course, to an Anglican divine as learned and devout as George Herbert. Moreover, if this reasoning were not enough, it would be the only way in which one could make any sense out of the great Christological hymn in the Epistle to the Philippians, which reads: Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth: And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of the Father. (2:5-11) The glory of Christ, then, was merited, in a sense, in his humanity by an act of perfect obedience to the Father's will in freely accepting the role of servant, or, in other words, by accepting the "collar." In his acceptance, through this obedience, Christ undid the effects of the disobedience and rebellion of the first Adam and of the subsequent sons and daughters of Adam. In the call "Child" (1. 35), the speaker in Herbert's poem recognizes a new perspective in his relationship to the Lord. He is not a "doulos," a degraded servant, as he thought, but rather, like the Suffering Servant in Isaiah and like Christ himself, he is a "pais;" and he realizes that he too is called upon to carry out the will of the divine Caller. To accept this call, this collar, is to be prepared to enter into the mystery of suffering and death, as did Christ, who was also the "pais" or servant child of the Father. The demanding challenge is issued, and the speaker's response is "My Lord," thus indicating his total submission to the will of the Father and a complete acceptance of the role that has been clearly defined in the call "Child." In the response "My Lord" (1.36), we have a tremendously exciting and powerful conclusion to the poem. The speaker, realizing fully what this call means, surrenders himself in Christ-like obedience to that Father whom now, in Christ, he claims. Again, the word "Lord" needs to be seen in its biblical context.[5] In the Septuagint Old Testament, the word used for Yahweh is "Kurios" (kupios) meaning Lord, a rendering of the Hebrew word "Adonai." When the wold "Kurios" is used in the New Testament, it means "owner," "master," or simply the "lord"; and it is used extensively by Christ in the parables (for example, in Mark 12:9; Matthew 18:20; 25:20; and Luke 13:8). It is also used by a son for his father (for instance, in Matt. 21:30:) and in addressing a superior with respect and courtesy (for example, in Matthew 27:63; and Acts 16:30). After the Resurrection, the disciples apply the word to Christ, thereby indicating His divinity. In John 21:5-7, we read that, after his Resurrection, Jesus appears before his disciples, who

are fishing in the Sea of Galilee, and He says, "Children ("paidia"], have ye any meat?" John says to Peter, "It is the Lord" ("Kyrios"). Here we find a very clear juxtaposition of "Child" and "Lord." It might be expected that the speaker in Herbert's poem, called "Child," would respond by saying "Father"; but such a response would not fully establish the precise relationship that is explicitly stated in the response "My Lord." The choleric speaker, realizing that he is not a slave but an elected servant and child of the Father, one who holds a similar relationship to God that Christ held, answers in total submission, fully recognizing and accepting the consequences of his decision. In effect, he says that he is willing to take on the role of suffering servant that Christ accepted, and he realizes that by obedience he will merit the name of "Child" and that then the wheat and wine (11-12) of the Eucharist that previously were lacking in spiritual refreshment and consolation will again become sweet and nourishing to him. Like Christ, the speaker will now obey in love and, like Christ, will continue faithfully in his "calling" by living out a sacrificial life through a series of sacrificial acts--and, in his faithful imitation of Christ, will accept even death without fear. The subtle, yet precise, scriptural allusions in the poem should not cause us, however, to lose sight of the gentle humor that also permeates it. Perhaps the reason for the speaker's vivid recalling of his choleric outburst against Christian service and suffering is only so that he can relish once more the assurance that the Caller loves him. This playfulness is not at all out of keeping with the love that surrounds the relationship between God and the believer. Many of Herbert's poems in The Temple reflect this kind of playful familiarity with God that is one of their most attractive features.[6] However, it is important to remember the distinction between "serious" and "solemn." When Herbert is not "solemn," that is not a reason for thinking he is not "serious." In "The Collar," he is quite "serious" in his playfulness.

Henry Vaughan's The Retreate

In the poem The Retreate Henry Vaughan deals with the loss of the heavenly glory experienced during the childhood and expresses a fanciful desire to get back that original stage. The theme, on the surface level, appears very simple; but going into the deeper the reader will find that the poem is founded on the diverse European idealistic, psychological, religious/mystical and philosophical doctrines in the western culture. On the socio-cultural level, the poem can be interpreted as a reflection of the urge for liberating the human psyche from the torments and tyrannies of civilization, an urge which, it must be said, has been expressed by Vaughan in the purest, distilled and highly cultivated form of thought. On the psychological level, the desire to go back to a happy childhood can be interpreted, Freud said, as an escape from the hard realities of life in the defence mechanism of regression, as a daydream, the root cause of which can be traced in

the agoraphobia of a person, which constantly goads him/her to seek refuge in the mothers womb. On the philosophical level, what Vaughans says in the poem, tallies with Platos theory of anamnesis and transmigration of the soul. But above all, the purpose of the poet here is didactic, and he has given to the poem a deep religious meaning and fervour by drawing upon the inherent Christian doctrines and symbols. The poem begins with the characteristic lament for the lost childhood days, Happy those early days! When I Shind in my Angell-infancy. The word angel-infancy refers to that period of life, which is marked of innocence and ignorance. If we think of this from a secular perspective, this period of life is seen to have a special attraction for all the human beings. So the poetic property has not been reduced in its secular appeal. But Vaughan is here thinking in terms of mystical Christian theology, in which the child occupies a significant place, on the one hand, symbolising innocence, and on the other, representing the Babe of Virgin Mary, Jesus Christa theme which remained a favourite one among the Renaissance painters like Botticelli, Leonardo da Vinci, Titian, Bellini. Vaughans theme here is not the glorification of Christ as the Babe, the theme is here a retrospection of the degeneration and degradation of his own personal life in contrast to what he had been during his childhood. The memory of that phase of life forces him to go back to that divine world, from which his soul, he believes, came to this world. The poet, however, gives a theoretical justification to his beliefs by drawing upon the Platonic doctrine of the transmigration of the soul. In this process the soul, Plato said, resides in the world of Ideas, of Beauty, Truth and Goodness before being transplanted into the human body. But once transplanted into matter it forgets its previous existence in the gradual growing contacts with the material world. The theoretical bias is most strongly evident in the lines where the poet says that everything was different, Before I understood this place Appointed for my second race. But the next moment the poet uses an image, a white, Celestiall thought, which derives its symbolism from Neo-Platonic mysticism and Christian mythology. Neo-Platonism explains the manifest material world as merely an illuminated illusion of a light from a single, ever-radiant divine source, God. But the poets back also reminds us Adam and Eves looking back at the lost Garden of Eden in Miltons Paradise Lost, They looking back, all th eastern side beheld Of paradise, so late their happy seat, . They hand in hand with wandering steps and slow Through Eden took their solitary way. (Book IV) The agony for the poets loss of childhood vision of heavenly glory is, it may be said, felt on the same level as that for the loss of Eden and the subsequent degeneration in the archetypal Biblical theme. All is, however, not lost. The poet finds a spiritual recovery in the Platonic doctrine of Love: he finds the reflections of the Universal Beauty in the particular things of physical beauty. That is to say, by meditating on the particular he tries to graduate to the understanding of the Universal Beauty of God. The poet can, see a glimpse of his bright face; When on some gilded Cloud or flowre My gazing soul would dwell an houre. Speaking scientifically, this is a psychological journey in its extreme form, in which the poet seeks extinction of the flesh so that the soul is released and made one with the divine source once again. Though this is purely a Platonic concept, it is justified in relation to the Christian theology. Like Moses, who was once granted one side of the plain of the valley of Jericho, the city of palm trees, the poet wants to go back to That city of Palm trees or heaven. This is purely a mystical concept, and this distinguishes Vaughan from

Wordsworth, who dealing with the same theme in his Immortality Ode works out a poetic resolution, which does not negate the beauty of matter. But Vaughan, on the contrary, finds weaker gloriessome shadows of eternity in matter. He wants to suspend all the properties of the senses from matter or reality now and hopes to become one with the divine after his death. At the same time, however it must be said that Vaughans vision is also apocalyptic. During the Renaissance St. Johns Book of Revelation proved to be a dangerous book of prophecy, and during the Reformation the Apocalypse took various forms, among which spiritual or inner apocalypse entered the collective unconscious of the European peoples. It became a process of purifying ones inner being. So it may be said that for Vaughan the Retreate was also a revelation. The Retreat 1. Happy those early dayseverlastingness. (ll. 1-20) In these lines from the poem The Retreat the poet Henry Vaughan laments over the loss of his childhood vision and the fading away of the heavenly glory associated with that kind of vision. Not only that, he confesses how he has moved himself away from the glory by committing various sins of the body. The poet begins the poem with an agonizing realization that he had been really happy in his childhood. The reason he cites is that at that time he had been in that period of life, which is marked of innocence and ignorance. At that time he only had in mind the memory of the ever-radiant supreme being, God. He feels that he was not far from God then, and that he could see His bright face from a distance. Not only that, during his childhood it was possible for him to see that reflection of the eternal glory of God in the transitory yet beautiful things of the world, like a sunlit cloudlet or flower. He confesses agonizingly that all that had happened long ago before he learnt the crooked ways of life and began committing all kinds of sins with all the senses. On the philosophical level, what Vaughans says in the poem, tallies with Platos theory of anamnesis and transmigration of the soul. Plato said that before being transplanted into the human body, the human soul resides in the world of Ideas, of Beauty, Truth and Goodness. But once transplanted into matter it forgets its previous existence in the gradual growing contacts with the material world. But the next moment the poet uses an image, a white, Celestiall thought, which derives its symbolism from Neo-Platonic mysticism and Christian mythology. Neo-Platonism explains the manifest material world as merely an illuminated illusion of a light from a single, ever-radiant divine source, God. But the poets back also reminds us Adam and Eves looking back at the lost Garden of Eden in Miltons Paradise Lost, They hand in hand with wandering steps and slow Through Eden took their solitary way. (Book IV)

The agony for the poets loss of childhood vision of heavenly glory is, it may be said, felt on the same level as that for the loss of Eden and the subsequent degeneration in the archetypal Biblical theme. The poet finds a spiritual recovery in the Platonic doctrine of Love: he finds the reflections of the Universal Beauty in the particular things of physical beauty. That is to say, by meditating on the particular he tries to graduate to the understanding of the Universal Beauty of God. 2. O how I return In these lines from the poem The Retreat the poet Henry Vaughan makes a retrospection of the degeneration and degradation of his own personal life in contrast to what he had been during his childhood. The memory of that phase of life forces him to go back to that divine world, from which his soul, he believes, came to this world. The poet comes to an agonizing realization that he had been really happy in his childhood. At that time he only had in mind the memory of the ever-radiant supreme being, God. He feels that he was not far from God then, and that he could see His bright face from a distance. Not only that, during his childhood it was possible for him to see that reflection of the eternal glory of God in the transitory yet beautiful things of the world, like a sunlit cloudlet or flower. He confesses agonizingly that all that had happened long ago before he learnt the crooked ways of life and began committing all kinds of sins with all the senses. That is why he expresses his peculiar desire to take a backward motion in order to reach the source, that is, heaven from which he came. Like Moses, who was once granted one side of the plain of the valley of Jericho, the city of palm trees, the poet wants to go back to That city of Palm trees or heaven. Now, he feels that his soul, after remaining for a long time in this world and drinking too much to the material things of this world, is feeble. He knows he is unsteady, yet he firmly expresses his renewed conviction that he will be able to reach the original home when his body dissolves into dust.

Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard: Introduction

Thomas Gray's "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard" was first published in 1751. Gray may, however, have begun writing the poem in 1742, shortly after the death of his close friend Richard West. An elegy is a poem which laments the dead. Gray's "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard" is noteworthy in that it mourns the death not of great or famous people, but of common men. The speaker of this poem sees a country churchyard at sunset, which impels him to meditate on the nature of human mortality. The poem invokes the classical idea of memento mori, a Latin phrase which states plainly to all mankind, "Remember that you must die." The speaker considers the fact that in death, there is no difference between great and common people. He goes on to wonder if among the lowly people buried in the churchyard there had been any natural poets or

politicians whose talent had simply never been discovered or nurtured. This thought leads him to praise the dead for the honest, simple lives that they lived. Gray did not produce a great deal of poetry; the "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard," however, has earned him a respected and deserved place in literary history. The poem was written at the end of the Augustan Age and at the beginning of the Romantic period, and the poem has characteristics associated with both literary periods. On the one hand, it has the ordered, balanced phrasing and rational sentiments of Neoclassical poetry. On the other hand, it tends toward the emotionalism and individualism of the Romantic poets; most importantly, it idealizes and elevates the common man.

Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard Summary

Lines 1-4: In the first stanza, the speaker observes the signs of a country day drawing to a close: a curfew bell ringing, a herd of cattle moving across the pasture, and a farm laborer returning home. The speaker is then left alone to contemplate the isolated rural scene. The first line of the poem sets a distinctly somber tone: the curfew bell does not simply ring; it "knells"a term usually applied to bells rung at a death or funeral. From the start, then, Gray reminds us of human mortality. Lines 5-8: The second stanza sustains the somber tone of the first: the speaker is not mournful, but pensive, as he describes the peaceful landscape that surrounds him. Even the air is characterized as having a "solemn stillness." Lines 9-12: The sound of an owl hooting intrudes upon the evening quiet. We are told that the owl "complains"; in this context, the word does not mean "to whine" or "grumble," but "to express sorrow." The owl's call, then, is suggestive of grief. Note that at no point in these three opening stanzas does Gray directly refer to death or a funeral; rather, he indirectly creates a funereal atmosphere by describing just a few mournful sounds. Lines 13-16: It is in the fourth stanza that the speaker directly draws our attention to the graves in the country churchyard. We are presented with two potentially conflicting images of death. Line 14 describes the heaps of earth surrounding the graves; in order to dig a grave, the earth must necessarily be disrupted. Note that the syntax of this line is slightly confusing. We would expect this sentence to read "Where the turf heaves"not "where heaves the turf." Gray has inverted the word order. Just as the earth has been disrupted, the syntax imitates the way in which the earth has been disrupted. But by the same token, the "rude Forefathers" buried beneath the earth seem entirely at peace: we are told that they are laid in "cells," a term which reminds us of the quiet of a monastery, and that they "sleep."

Lines 17-20: If the "Forefathers" are sleeping, however, the speaker reminds us that they will never again rise from their "beds" to hear the pleasurable sounds of country life that the living do. The term "lowly beds" describes not only the unpretentious graves in which the forefathers are buried, but the humble conditions that they endured when they were alive. Lines 21-24: The speaker then moves on to consider some of the other pleasures the dead will no longer enjoy: the happiness of home, wife, and children. Lines 25-28: The dead will also no longer be able to enjoy the pleasures of work, of plowing the fields each day. This stanza points to the way in which the "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard" contains elements of both Augustan and Romantic poetry. Poetry that describes agricultureas this one doesis called georgic. Georgic verse was extremely popular in the eighteenth century. Note, however, that Gray closely identifies the farmers with the land that they work. This association of man and nature is suggestive of a romantic attitude. The georgic elements of the stanza almost demand that we characterize it as typical of the eighteenth century, but its tone looks forward to the Romantic period. Lines 29-32: The next four stanzas caution those who are wealthy and powerful not to look down on the poor. These lines warn the reader not to slight the "obscure" "destiny" of the poor the fact that they will never be famous or have long histories, or "annals," written about them. Lines 33-36: This stanza invokes the idea of memento mori (literally, a reminder of mortality). The speaker reminds the reader that regardless of social position, beauty, or wealth, all must eventually die. Lines 37-40: The speaker also challenges the reader not to look down on the poor for having modest, simple graves. He suggests, moreover, that the elaborate memorials that adorn the graves of the "Proud" are somehow excessive. In this context, the word "fretted" in line 39 has a double meaning: on the one hand, it can refer to the design on a cathedral ceiling; on the other hand, it can suggest that there is something "fretful," or troublesome, about the extravagant memorials of the wealthy. Lines 41-44: The speaker observes that nothing can bring the dead back to life, and that all the advantages that the wealthy had in life are useless in the face of death. Neither elaborate funeral monuments nor impressive honors can restore life. Nor can flattery in some way be used to change the mind of death. Note here Gray's use of personification in characterizing both "flattery" and "death"as though death has a will or mind of its own.

Lines 45-48: The speaker then reconsiders the poor people buried in the churchyard. He wonders what great deeds they might have accomplished had they been given the opportunity: one of these poor farmers, the speaker reasons, might have