The Elegy of Gray was evidently written under the influence of strong feeling, and vivid impressions of the beautiful in the scenery around him, and when his sensitive mind was overspread with melancholy, in consequence of the death of his young, amiable and accomplished friend West, to whom, in June, 1742, he addressed his lovely Ode to Spring, which was written at Stoke; but before it reached his friend he was numbered with the dead! So true was the friendship subsisting between them, that the poet of Stoke was overpowered with a melancholy which, although subdued, lasted during a great part of his life.
The scenes amid which the Elegy was composed were well adapted to soothe and cherish that contemplative sadness which, when the wounds of grief are healing, it is a luxury to indulge, and that the poet did indulge them is self-evident in many a line.
In returning to Stoke Green to spend the night, some of the rustic peasantry were wending their way down the lane to the same place, but none of these simple people, although questioned, could tell aught of him whose fame and works had induced the pilgrimage to Stoke; neither did better success attend any succeeding inquiry at the village. So universally true is that scriptural saying, like ALL the sayings of HIM who uttered it, that a prophet is not without honor, save in his own country and in his own house.
Retiring to rest early, with a full determination to do that which had often been resolved but never accomplished, that is, to rise with the dawn; the resolution had nearly defeated the purpose, inasmuch as the mind being surcharged with the past and the expected, there was little inclination to sleep until after midnight. But a full and fixed determination of the will overcomes greater difficulties, and the first streak of light at break of day found me up and dressed, and of a truth
Brushing with hasty steps the dews away, To meet the sun upon the upland lawn.
The dawn was most lovely, and the perfume from the hawthorns delicious; every thing indicated a beautiful day. The sarcophagus stands on the most elevated spot, and there, where probably in days long past the poet had watched the rising of the sun, did I, a humble pilgrim at his shrine, await the same sublime spectacle.