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Test 1

The poem reflects on the lives of the poor, emphasizing their simple joys and the impact of poverty on their potential. It contrasts their humble existence with the ambitions of the wealthy, ultimately suggesting that death equalizes all, regardless of social status. The speaker mourns the anonymity of the deceased and highlights the importance of remembering their uncelebrated lives and contributions.

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11 views3 pages

Test 1

The poem reflects on the lives of the poor, emphasizing their simple joys and the impact of poverty on their potential. It contrasts their humble existence with the ambitions of the wealthy, ultimately suggesting that death equalizes all, regardless of social status. The speaker mourns the anonymity of the deceased and highlights the importance of remembering their uncelebrated lives and contributions.

Uploaded by

govindanm223
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere,

Heaven did a recompense as largely send:


He gave to Misery all he had, a tear,
He gained from Heaven ('twas all he wished) a friend.

No farther 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. “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard” Summary
The church's evening bell signals that the day is ending. The mooing cows travel slowly
across the grass and a tired farmer trudges home, leaving the world and I are together in the
darkness. Now the land around me is glowing in the sunset but also fading away as I look at it.
There's a seriousness stillness hanging in the air, apart from the buzz of a flying beetle and the
tinkling of the sheep's bells, which is like their bedtime music. The air is still apart from that
tower over there, covered with ivy, where a sad owl is complaining to the moon about anything
that, wandering around her secret nest in the tower, disturbs her longstanding, lonely rule over
the area.
Underneath those burly elm trees and the shade of that yew tree, there are mounds of
moldy dirt: each lying in a narrow room forever, the uneducated founders of this tiny village
sleep. The sound of the scented breezes of morning, the swallow singing in a shed made of straw,
the rooster's sharp cry, or the echoes of a hunter's horn these sounds will no longer wake the dead
from their humble resting places. The fireplace will no longer burn brightly for these dead
people, nor will with their busy wives work in the evening to take care of them. Their children no
longer will run over to celebrate when their father has come home from work for the evening, or
climb on his lap to get to be the first to get a kiss.
When they were alive, these people often harvested crops with their farm implements.
They often plowed up difficult ground. How cheerfully they drove their farm animals over the
field as their plowed! How confidently they chopped down trees, which seem to bow as they fell
beneath the strokes of the ax! Don't let ideas about ambition push you to make fun of the useful
work these country folk did. Don't make fun of their plain and simple joys, their unknown lives.
Don't let feelings of superiority make you smile scornfully at the short and simple biographies of
poor people.
The bragging implied by a rich family's coat of arms; the frills and traditions of the
powerful; all the things that beauty and wealth can give someone death waits for all these things.
Even the most glorious lives still end in death. And you, you proud people, don't blame the poor
if no memorials are erected on their graves as ornaments that outline their achievements in life;
or if they don't have a tomb with a long hallway and a vaulted ceiling illustrated with all their
accomplishments, echoing with the sounds of mourners singing the praises of the dead.

Can an urn decorated with events from the dead person's life, or a life-like sculpture of
their head, call the dead person's breathe back into their body? Can honor bring their decaying
body back to life? Can flattery convince death not to come for someone? Maybe in this unkempt
patch of ground is buried someone who was once passionately filled with heavenly fire. Maybe
someone is buried here who could have ruled an empire or brought music and poetry to new
heights. But they couldn't read or get an education, meaning they were never able to learn about
history. Cold poverty held back their inspiration and froze the creative parts of their minds.
Many gems that give off the most beautiful light are buried in dark, unexplored caves in
the ocean. Many flowers bloom unseen by anyone, wasting their beauty and scent on a deserted
place. Some villager here could have been like the politician John Hampden (who fought for the
people's rights against an authoritarian king) except on a much smaller scale, fearlessly standing
up to the landlord who owned the fields he worked. Someone here might have been a silent,
fame-less John Milton (the renowned Renaissance poet who wrote Paradise Lost) because he
never learned to write. Someone could have been like the English dictator Oliver Cromwell, but
because he was poor and powerless he never had the chance to ruthlessly kill all the English
people that Cromwell did.
The ability to have the senate applaud you; the ability to scoff at the dangers of suffering
and defeat; the chance to spread wealth throughout a happy country; the chance to live a life so
influential that one's biography is reflected in an entire nation. All these things were prevented by
these people's poverty. Not only did poverty prevent them from developing their talents, but it
also prevented them from committing any atrocities. It prevented them from killing countless
people in order to gain power, and in the process giving up on any sense of human rights.
Poverty means that these people never had to hide their guilt after committing such acts,
repressing their own shame. They never had to honor the rich and proud as if honoring gods with
poetry.
Far away from the crazed, immoral conflicts of the rich and powerful, these poor people
only had simple, serious desires. In this calm and isolated valley of life, they stuck to their own
quiet ways. Yet, to protect even these poor people's bones from total disrespect, a meager
memorial has been built nearby. It has poorly written rhymes and a poorly made sculpture, but it
still makes passing visitors sigh.

These people's names the years they were alive all carved by someone who was illiterate
stand in place of fame and a lengthy commemoration. Many quotes from the Bible are scattered
around the graveyard, quotes that teach unrefined yet good-hearted people how to die. After all,
what kind of person, knowing full well they'd be forgotten after death, ever gave up this pleasant
and troublesome life ever left the warm areas of a happy day without looking back and wanting
to stay a little longer? A dying person relies on the heart of some close friend, leaning against
their chest they need that person to shed some reverent tears as they die. Even from the tomb
nature cries out, even in our dead bodies the habitual passions of the poor still burn.
You, who have been thinking about those who died anonymously, have been telling their
unpretentious story in this poem. If by chance, and because of lonely thoughts, someone similar
to you asks about what happened to you maybe luckily enough some old country person will
answer them: "We saw him at sunrise a lot, his quick footsteps sweeping the dew off the grass as
he went to see the sun from the town's higher fields. "Over there, at the base of that swaying
beech tree with old, gnarled roots and high, tangled branches, he would lay down and noon and
stretch out his tired body, gazing into the nearby brook.
"Close to that forest over there, smiling as if with disapproval, talking to himself about
his own stubborn fantasies, he would explore sometimes moping, sad and pale, like a miserable
person; other times gone crazy with worry, disturbed by unrequited love. "One morning I didn't
see him on his usual hill, near the rough fields and his favorite tree. Another morning came, and I
didn't see him by the stream or field or forest. "The third morning, with funeral songs and a sad
procession, we saw him carried slowly along the path to church. Go up and read (since you can
read) the poem carved on the gravestone under that old, gnarled tree."
The Speaker's Epitaph:

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