is supposed to have been written in the yard of
Stoke-Pogis church, a little building with a square tower, the whole
covered with a riotous growth of ivy vines. The church is in the
country, not many miles from Windsor Castle; and even to this day the
beautiful landscape preserves the rural charms it had in Gray's time. We
must not suppose that Gray actually sat in the churchyard and wrote his
lines. As a matter of fact, he was a very careful and painstaking
writer, and for eight years was at work on this poem, selecting each
word so that it should express just the shade of meaning he wanted and
give the perfect melody he sought. However, he did begin the poem at
Stoke in October or November of 1742 and continued it there in November,
1749; but it was finished in Cambridge in June, 1750.

[362-5] _Reign_ here means _dominion_ or _possessions_. Why is the bird
called a _moping_ owl? Why is her reign _solitary_? What word is
understood after _such_ in the third line of this stanza?

[362-6] _Rude_ means _uneducated_, _uncultured_, not _ill-mannered_.

[362-7] A clarion is a loud, clear-sounding trumpet.

[362-8] In the church are the tombs of the wealthy and titled of the
neighborhood, and in the building and on the walls are monuments that
tell the virtues of the lordly dead. It is outside, however, under the
sod, in their narrow cells, that the virtuous poor, the real subjects of
the poet's thoughts, lie in quiet slumbers.

[362-9] What evening cares has the busy housewife? Was she making the
clothes of her children, knitting, mending, darning, after the supper
dishes were put away?

[363-10] Where were the children? Were they waiting for their father's
return? To whom would they run to tell of his coming?

[363-11] The _glebe_ is the turf. Why should it be called _stubborn_?

[363-12] _Jocund_ means _joyful_.

[363-13] The word _Ambition_ begins with a capital letter because Gray
speaks of ambition as though it were a person. The line means, "Let not
ambitious persons speak lightly of the work the rude forefathers did."

[363-14] The inevitable hour (death) alike awaits the boast of heraldry,
the pomp of power, and all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave.

[363-15] This is perhaps the most famous stanza in the poem. The
following story is told of General Wolfe as he was leading his troops to
the daring assault on Quebec in 1759: "At past midnight, when the
heavens were hung black with clouds, and the boat