Thomas Gray (1716–1771): English poet and classical scholar. The library holds 85 quotes by Thomas Gray, drawn from Elegy in a Country Churchyard, The Bard, The Progress of Poesy and other works. The 60 below are the most quoted; search the library in the maker for the rest.
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.
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?
Full many a gem of purest ray serene
The dark unfathom’d caves of ocean bear;
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.
Far from the madding crowd’s ignoble strife
Their sober wishes never learn’d to stray;
Along the cool sequester’d vale of life
They kept the noiseless tenor of their way.
Here rests his head upon the lap of earth,
A youth to fortune and to fame unknown:
Fair Science frown’d not on his humble birth,
And Melancholy mark’d him for her own.
Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere,
Heaven did a recompense as largely send:
He gave to mis’ry (all he had) a tear,
He gained from Heav’n (’t was all he wish’d) a friend.
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.
For who, to dumb forgetfulness a prey,
This pleasing anxious being e’er resign’d,
Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day,
Nor cast one longing ling’ring look behind?
But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page,
Rich with the spoils of time, did ne’er unroll;
Chill penury repress’d their noble rage,
And froze the genial current of the soul.
When love could teach a monarch to be wise,
And gospel-light first dawn’d from Bullen’s eyes.
Too poor for a bribe, and too proud to importune;
He had not the method of making a fortune.
One morn I miss’d him on the custom’d hill,
Along the heath, and near his fav’rite tree:
Another came; nor yet beside the rill,
Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was he.
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.
No further seek his merits to disclose,
Or draw his frailties from their dread abode
(There they alike in trembling hope repose),
The bosom of his Father and his God.
From toil he wins his spirits light,
From busy day the peaceful night;
Rich, from the very want of wealth,
In heaven’s best treasures, peace and health.
The boast of heraldry, the pomp of pow’r,
And all that beauty, all that wealth e’er gave,
Await alike the inevitable hour.
The paths of glory lead but to the grave.
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 lingering look behind?