Quote of the Day (Thomas Gray, on the “Inevitable Hour” of the Grave)

“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.”—Thomas Gray, “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard” (1751)

The English poet Thomas Gray (1716-1771) published this, probably the most famous elegy in the English language, anonymously 260 years ago this week. He had been mulling it perhaps for as much as eight years. 

Then, even after completing it in 1750, Gray circulated it among friends for another year before the editor of one cheap periodical, having gotten his hands on it in the meantime and saying he would print it (as it happened, with errors), forced the author to put it into the hands of the more prestigious publisher Dodsley. But for that first hack, Gray—who only published a handful of poems in his lifetime—might have ended up like the “mute inglorious Milton” he memorialized here.

Multiple phrases from this poem have continued to be quoted years after its first appearance, but the last line in the above quote is really the heart of the work. I’ve had occasion to ponder it more and more recently, having watched one relative after another (including my mother this past fall) pass away.

Gray is almost brutally egalitarian here: all the distinctions of wealth and fame count for nothing in the face of death. And yet, I’m of the opinion that brutality is only part of what happens at this point, that a life well-lived will also bring a more glorious immortality in the resurrection.

(The portrait of Gray here, by the way, is by John Giles Eccart, painted a few years before the appearance of the poem.)