"The moping owl may to the moon complain
Of such as, wandering near her secret bower,
Molest her ancient, solitary reign."

The structure is as simple and old-fashioned, both without and
within, as any village church can well be. No village, however, is to
be seen. Stoke consists chiefly of scattered houses, and this is now
in the midst of the park. In the churchyard,

"Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade,
Where heaves the turf in many a mouldering heap,
Each in his narrow cell forever laid,
The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep."

All this is quite literal; and the tomb of the poet himself, near the
southeast window, completes the impression of the scene. It is a
plain brick altar tomb, covered with a blue slate slab, and, besides
his own ashes, contains those of his mother and aunt. On the slab are
inscribed the following lines by Gray himself: "In the vault beneath
are deposited, in hope of a joyful resurrection, the remains of _Mary
Antrobus_. She died unmarried, Nov. 5, 1749, aged sixty-six. In the
same pious confidence, beside her friend and sister, here sleep the
remains of _Dorothy Gray_, widow; the careful, tender mother of many
children, ONE of whom alone had the misfortune to survive her. She
died, March 11, 1753, aged LXXII."

No testimony of the interment of Gray in the same tomb was inscribed
anywhere till Mr. Penn, in 1799, erected the monument already
mentioned, and placed a small slab in the wall, under the window,
opposite to the tomb itself, recording the fact of Gray's burial
there. The whole scene is well worthy of a summer day's stroll,
especially for such as, pent in the metropolis, know how to enjoy the
quiet freshness of the country and the associations of poetry and the
past.

[Illustration: GRAY'S MONUMENT, STOKE PARK.]

ELEGY WRITTEN IN A COUNTRY CHURCHYARD.

[Illustration]

ELEGY WRITTEN IN A COUNTRY CHURCHYARD.

The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
The lowing herd wind slowly o'er the lea,
The plowman homeward plods his weary way,
And leaves the world to darkness and to me.

Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight, 5
And all the air a solemn stillness holds,
Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight,
And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds:

[Illustration]

Save that, from yonder ivy-mantled tower,
The moping owl does to the moon complain 10
Of