Thomas Gray
Thomas Gray
Thomas Graywas an English poet, letter-writer, classical scholar and professor at Pembroke College, Cambridge University. He is widely known for his Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, published in 1751...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth26 December 1716
kings air wings
Ruin seize thee, ruthless king! Confusion on thy banners wait! Though fann'd by Conquest's crimson wing, They mock the air with idle state.
pain eye land
The applause of list'ning senates to command, The threats of pain and ruin to despise, To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land, And read their history in a nation's eyes.
pain blow childhood
Ah, happy hills! ah, pleasing shade! Ah, fields beloved in vain! Where once my careless childhood stray'd, A stranger yet to pain! I feel the gales that from ye blow A momentary bliss bestow.
beauty path wealth
The boast of heraldry, the pomp of pow'r, And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave, Awaits alike th' inevitable hour. The paths of glory lead but to the grave.
inspirational wise ignorance
Where ignorance is bliss, 'Tis folly to be wise.
life wish crowds
Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife Their sober wishes never learn'd to stray; Along the cool sequester'd vale of life They kept the noiseless tenor of their way.
pain moving grief
In buskined measures move Pale Grief and pleasing Pain, With Horror, tyrant of the throbbing breast.
views hue woe
Behind the steps that Misery treads Approaching Comfort view: The hues of bliss more brightly glow Chastised by sabler tints of woe, And blended form, with artful strife, The strength and harmony of life.
thinking water rude
Where'er the oak's thick branches stretch A broader browner shade; Where'er the rude and moss-grown beech O'er-canopies the glade, Beside some water's rushy brink With me the Muse shall sit, and think.
littles proud lows
How low, how little are the proud, How indigent the great!
summer spring flower
T'was Spring, t'was Summer, all was gay Now Autumn bears a cloud brow The flowers of Spring are swept way And Summer fruits desert the bough
beautiful education squares
The different steps and degrees of education may be compared to the artificer's operations upon marble; it is one thing to dig it out of the quarry, and another to square it, to give it gloss and lustre, call forth every beautiful spot and vein, shape it into a column, or animate it into a statue.
eye gay men
To contemplation's sober eye, Such is the race of man; And they that creep, and they that fly, Shall end where they began, Alike the busy and the gay, But flutter through life's little day.
woe hue bliss
The hues of bliss more brightly glow, Chastis'd by sabler tints of woe.