He won a fellowship in the university but took no degree. Instead he accepted the invitation of his friend Horace Walpole to travel, and together they spent two years on the Continent.

When he returned to England Gray took up his residence in Cambridge, and here, except for short intervals of travel and vacation-visits, he spent his life. Three years before his death he was elected Professor of Modern History in the university; but he delivered no lectures, and it is said that the only function he performed in connection with his professorship was to draw his salary. He died in Cambridge in July, 1771, and was buried at Stoke Pogis in the little churchyard which his Elegy has immortalized.

By nature Gray was a recluse. His time he spent largely in study, and these studies included music, painting, botany, heraldry, and the literature of various countries. He was a pioneer in the study of the Norse, and by his enthusiasm brought the language and mythology to the favorable notice of England. His admiration for craggy mountain scenery, and his feeling for Gothic grandeur, were innovations in his day. By his praises of these types of beauty he foreshadowed the dawn of that Romanticism which came into full light in the generation which succeeded.

But Gray's spirit of poetic workmanship remained largely classic. He was an æsthete who took great pains in bringing his verse to a highly finished excellence. His writing of the Elegy extended over a period of seven years. The studied leisure of his verse composition accounts for the limited quantity - about fourteen hundred lines only. It is significant, however, that practically all of it has survived. And while the total output is scant, it is of further significance that his influence has tended to exalt and ennoble poetic taste and refinement. But with all this acquired taste, he retained enough of the spirit of democracy to reveal in his great Elegy that trait of sympathy and understanding for simple life and simple longing that distinguishes great and masterly compositions.

LYRICS BY GRAY

ODE ON THE PLEASURE ARISING FROM
VICISSITUDE

Now the golden Morn aloft

Waves her dew-bespangled wing, With vermeil cheek and whisper soft

She woos the tardy Spring:
Till April starts, and calls around
The sleeping fragrance from the ground,
And lightly o'er the living scene
Scatters his freshest, tenderest green.

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New-born flocks, in rustic dance,
Frisking ply their feeble feet;
Forgetful of their wintry trance
The birds his presence greet:
But chief, the sky-lark warbles high
His trembling thrilling ecstasy;
And lessening from the dazzled sight,
Melts into air and liquid light.

Yesterday the sullen year

Saw the snowy whirlwind fly;
Mute was the music of the air,

The herd stood drooping by:
Their raptures now that wildly flow
No yesterday nor morrow know;
'Tis Man alone that joy descries
With forward and reverted eyes.

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Smiles on past misfortune's brow
Soft reflection's hand can trace,
And o'er the cheek of sorrow throw

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A melancholy grace;
While hope prolongs our happier hour,
Or deepest shades, that dimly lour

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And blacken round our weary way,
Gilds with a gleam of distant day.

Still, where rosy pleasure leads,
See a kindred grief pursue:

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.

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See the wretch that long has tost

On the thorny bed of pain,
At length repair his vigour lost
And breathe and walk again:
The meanest floweret of the vale,
The simplest note that swells the gale,
The common sun, the air, the skies,

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To him are opening Paradise.

ON A FAVOURITE CAT, DROWNED IN A TUB OF GOLD FISHES

'T was on a lofty vase's side,

Where China's gayest art had dyed

The azure flowers that blow,
Demurest of the tabby kind
The pensive Selima, reclined,

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Gazed on the lake below.

Her conscious tail her joy declared:
The fair round face, the snowy beard,
The velvet of her paws,

Her coat that with the tortoise vies,
Her ears of jet, and emerald eyes -
She saw, and purr'd applause.

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Still had she gazed, but 'midst the tide
Two angel forms were seen to glide,

The Genii of the stream:

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Their scaly armour's Tyrian hue
Through richest purple, to the view

Betray'd a golden gleam.

The hapless Nymph with wonder saw:
A whisker first, and then a claw

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With many an ardent wish

She stretch'd, in vain, to reach the prize -
What female heart can gold despise?
What Cat 's averse to fish?

Presumptuous maid! with looks intent

Again she stretch'd, again she bent,
Nor knew the gulf between -
Malignant Fate sat by and smiled -
The slippery verge her feet beguiled;
She tumbled headlong in !

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Eight times emerging from the flood
She mew'd to every watery God

Some speedy aid to send: -
No Dolphin came, no Nereid stirr'd,

Nor cruel Tom nor Susan heard

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A favourite has no friend!

From hence, ye Beauties! undeceived

Know one false step is ne'er retrieved,
And be with caution bold:

Not all that tempts your wandering eyes
And heedless hearts, is lawful prize,

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Nor all that glisters, gold!

THE BARD

I. 1. Strophe

"RUIN seize thee, ruthless King!
Confusion on thy banners wait;
Tho' fann'd by Conquest's crimson wing
They mock the air with idle state.

Helm, nor hauberk's twisted mail,
Nor e'en thy virtues, Tyrant, shall avail

To save thy secret soul from nightly fears,

From Cambria's curse, from Cambria's tears!"

Such were the sounds that o'er the crested pride Of the first Edward scatter'd wild dismay,

As down the steep of Snowdon's shaggy side

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He wound with toilsome march his long array:

Stout Glo'ster stood aghast in speechless trance; "To arms!" cried Mortimer, and couch'd his quiver

On a rock, whose haughty brow
Frowns o'er old Conway's foaming flood,

Robed in the sable garb of woe
With haggard eyes the Poet stood;
(Loose his beard and hoary hair
Stream'd like a meteor to the troubled air)
And with a master's hand and prophet's fire
Struck the deep sorrows of his lyre:

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"Hark, how each giant-oak and desert-cave Sighs to the torrent's awful voice beneath! O'er thee, oh King! their hundred arms they wave, 25 Revenge on thee in hoarser murmurs breathe;

Vocal no more, since Cambria's fatal day,

To high-born Hoel's harp, or soft Llewellyn's lay.

I. 3. Epode

"Cold is Cadwallo's tongue,

That hush'd the stormy main:
Brave Urien sleeps upon his craggy bed:

Mountains, ye mourn in vain

Modred, whose magic song

Made huge Plinlimmon bow his cloud-topt head.

On dreary Arvon's shore they lie
Smear'd with gore and ghastly pale:
Far, far aloof the affrighted ravens sail;
The famish'd eagle screams, and passes by.

Dear lost companions of my tuneful art,

Dear as the light that visits these sad eyes,

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