English 2610

Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid
Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire
Hands that the rod of empire might have swayed
Or waked to ecstasy the living lyre.

This was my personal favourite stanza. To me, there's something profoundly beautiful in the lines "Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid / Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire". I love the amount of poetry and power Gray imbues in the simple contemplation of an anonymous person's life. He knows nothing of who is buried in that particular plot, and sees that no-one has visited it in many years, but he takes the time to write a beautiful passage remarking on the potential of that life (and, by proxy, any life that had passed and found it's mortal home in that cemetery). He reminds us that the anonymous spectre of which he writes was once full of burning life, that it may have had the potential to be a great ruler or musician. I particularly love that he doesn't simply put these things in terms of an everyday person's life; rather, he chooses to write them through a lens of magnitude and opulence, lending a certain majestic grandiosity to his speculation with colloquialisms such as "celestial fire" and "rod of empire". I found this elegy to be haunting, moving, and beautiful. Fantastic.