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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
ON GRAY'S ELEGY, by CHARLES WILLIAM BRODRIBB
First Line: Go back beyond the electric light
Last Line: And you have gray and gray's good age.
Subject(s): Country Life; England; Gray, Thomas (1716-1771); Memory; English
First Line: Go back beyond the electric light
Last Line: And you have gray and gray's good age.
Subject(s): Country Life; England; Gray, Thomas (1716-1771); Memory; English
Go back beyond the electric light,
The radio and the works of steam,
And look on England dark at night
Or lit but by a taper's gleam.
Go back the last two hundred years
And there another nation find,
Of primal toils practitioners,
And men of self-supporting mind.
The sturdy ploughman leading home
At eve his horses to the stall;
The woodman ill content to roam
To towns where never beechunts fall;
The shepherd happy with his sheep,
The miller busy with his grain,
The learned Doctor bent to keep
One house and glebe as his domain.
Add homely fare and mantling ale;
And classic thought on printed page,
Nor dream that these shall ever fail—
And you have Gray and Gray's good age.
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