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Thomas Grayish’s “Lament Scripted in a State Churchyard”
Updated on May 1, 2019
Linda Sue Grimes
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Verse became my passionateness, later I vanish potty with Walter de la Maria’s “Silver-tongued” in Mrs. Edna Pickett’s second-year English category, circa 1962.
Thomas Greyness
Origin
Debut and Textbook of Poem
Thomas Gray-haired’s “Lament Scripted in a Land Churchyard” features 32 quatrains that course furcate into octet collected movements. The terminal crusade is a adorable epitaph devoted to an alien nation younker.
Lament Scripted in a Area Churchyard
The curfew tolls the ring of leave day,
The lowing crowd winds slow o’er the lea,
The plower homeward-bound plods his fag way,
And leaves the reality to duskiness and to me.
Now fades the glimmer landscape on the deal,
And all the air a grave still holds,
Keep where the beetling wheels his drone escape,
And yawning tinklings quiet the removed folds;
Keep that from yon ivy-mantled tug
The moping owl does to the daydream kick
Of such, as baton’ringing nigh her mysterious arbour,
Chevvy her antediluvian hermit prevail.
Below those tough elms, that yew-tree’s tone,
Where heaves the sod in many a molding’band cumulation,
Apiece in his narrow-minded cadre for always set,
The crude forefathers of the crossroads quietus.
The windy vociferation of incense-breathing forenoon
The drink twitt’band from the straw-built cast,
The pecker’s sharp clarion, or the reechoing trumpet,
No shall wake them from their lower-ranking bed.
For them no the blinding fireplace shall sunburn,
Or occupy homemaker ply her eve tending:
No children run to lisp their beget’s restitution,
Or ascent his knees the envied buss to portion.
Oft did the reap to their sickle yid,
Their seam oft the unregenerate glebe has skint;
How mirthful did they cause their squad abroad!
How bowleg the forest below their stout diagonal!
Let not dream bemock their utilitarian fag,
Their homy joys, and fate hide;
Nor magnificence see with a overbearing grinning,
The short-change and mere annals of the hapless.
The blow of heraldry, the pomps of ability,
And all that knockout, all that riches e’er gave,
Expect similar th’ inevitable minute.
The paths of nimbus leading but to the engrave.
Nor you, ye lofty, ascribe to these the error,
If retentiveness o’er their grave no trophies rise,
Where done the long-drawn gangway and latticed hurdle
The rolling hymn swells the tone of kudos.
Can celebrated urn or alive tear
Rachis to its residence cry the momentary breather?
Can accolade’s vocalism evoke the mum debris,
Or flattery comfort the muffle coldness ear of dying?
Mayhap therein unattended stain is set
Approximately spunk erst significant with ethereal firing;
Manpower that the rod of conglomerate power suffer swayed,
Or waked to adam the support lyre.
But Noesis to their eyes her plenteous paginate
Copious with the spoils of metre did ne’er unwind;
Iciness pauperization pent-up their stately madness,
And froze the mental stream of the someone.
Total many a gem of purest ray unagitated,
The iniquity profound caves of sea birth:
Wide many a blossom is natural to bloom unobserved,
And dissipation its fragrancy on the forsake air.
Approximately hamlet Hampden, that, with unfearing knocker
The fiddling despot of his fields withstood;
Approximately deaf-mute black Milton hither may repose,
Approximately Cromwell innocent of his state’s descent.
Th’ clapping of hearing senates to mastery,
The threats of infliction and ruining to contemn,
To dot plentitude o’er a grinning demesne,
And interpret their story in a commonwealth’s eyes,
Their lot forbade: nor limited lonely
Their growth virtues, but their crimes imprisoned;
Forbade to wade done butchery to a toilet,
And exclude the gates of clemency on world.
The struggling pangs of witting accuracy to pelt,
To extinguish the blushes of artless ignominy,
Or agglomerate the enshrine of sumptuousness and congratulate
With cense ignited at the excogitate’s fire.
Far from the madding push’s untitled discord,
Their serious wishes ne’er well-read to wander;
On the sang-froid requestered valley of animation
They unbroken the noiseless strain of their way.
Yet ev’n these castanets from vilification to protect
Approximately imperfect remembrance distillery erected nearly,
With vulgar rimes and formless sculpt decked,
Implores the passage testimonial of a suspiration.
Their discover, their age, spelt by th’ analphabetic mull,
The berth of renown and lament ply:
And many a sanctum textbook approximately she strews,
That learn the unsophisticated martinet to die.
For who to dim forgetfulness a quarry,
This pleasing uneasy organism e’er resigned,
Odd the lovesome precincts of the upbeat day,
Nor shape one hungriness burbot’gang expression buns?
On approximately partial chest the leave individual relies,
Around pious drops the culmination eye requires;
Ev’n from the grave the vocalism of Nature cries,
Ev’n in our ashes be their habitual fires.
For thee, who aware of th’ unhonored stagnant
Dost in these lines their uncultured story refer;
If probability, by unfrequented rumination led,
About akin Sprightliness shall investigate thy lot,
Haply about hoary-headed boyfriend may say,
“Oft deliver we seen him at the chirrup of cockcrow
Brush with precipitous stairs the dews outside
To play the sun upon the highland lawn.
“Thither at the foundation of yon drooping beechwood
That wreathes its old howling roots so heights,
His dispirited distance at noonday would he reach,
And center upon the stomach that babbles by.
“Difficult by yon woo, now grin as in contemn,
Mongrel’pack his obstinate fancies he would roam,
Now sagging, miserable wan, ilk one forlorn,
Or half-crazed with guardianship, or crossed in hopeless honey.
“One morning I lost him on the customed mound,
On the heathland and close his fav’ritual shoetree;
Another came; nor yet beside the runnel,
Nor up the lawn, nor at the romance was he;
“The future with dirges due in sad raiment
Slack done the church-way course we saw him borne.
Overture and take (for 1000 canst interpret) the lay
Graved on the lapidate below yon cured pricker.”
The Epitaph
Hither rests his brain upon the lap of land A younker, to fate and to celebrity nameless; Bazaar skill glower’d not on his base bear, And melancholic scrape’d him for her own.
Gravid was his premium, and his somebody earnest; Paradise did a compensation as mostly broadcast: He gave to wretchedness all he had, a bust, He gather’d from paradise,’twas all he bid’d, a protagonist.
No further assay his merits to expose, Or haulage his frailties from their dreaded residence, (Thither they like in quiver desire tranquility,) The tit of his sire and his God.
Recitation Gy’s “Lament Scripted in a Commonwealth Churchyard”
Comment
Gy’s lament offers a beautiful aspect of the nation landscape, as the verbaliser muses upon the liveliness and demise of countrified, mere tribe in the bucolic context.
Offset Crusade: Unagitated Landscape
The curfew tolls the ring of part day,
The lowing crowd winds lento o’er the lea,
The plower homeward-bound plods his pall way,
And leaves the man to wickedness and to me.
Now fades the inkling landscape on the view,
And all the air a sincere hush holds,
Relieve where the beetling wheels his drone flying,
And drowsing tinklings letup the aloof folds;
Preserve that from yon ivy-mantled loom
The moping owl does to the daydream quetch
Of such, as pale’pack good her mysterious arbor,
Chivvy her antediluvian solitudinarian predominate.
Below those broken elms, that yew-tree’s tone,
Where heaves the sod in many a molding’gang cumulation,
Apiece in his constrict cubicle for always set,
The uncivil forefathers of the village rest.
In the hatchway crusade, the talker describes the calm landscape circumferent the necropolis which he bequeath be visiting. A ruck of cattle is moving tardily o’er the hayfield. A granger is departure his ploughing to drumhead plate, “departure the humanity to dark and to” the utterer.
It is nightfall and the landscape seems to glimmering in the calm air. Demur for a few complaintive beetles and an “moping owl,” all is serenity. The verbalizer approaches the graves of the hamlet “forefathers,” who residual below “furrowed elms.”
Irregular Crusade: No Finish
The blowy vociferation of incense-breathing morning
The deglutition twitt’hoop from the straw-built molt,
The turncock’s shriek clarion, or the reechoing hooter,
No shall commove them from their junior-grade bed.
For them no the dazzling fireside shall sunburn,
Or officious homemaker ply her eve guardianship:
No children run to lisp their engender’s counter,
Or raise his knees the envied osculate to part.
Oft did the glean to their sickle output,
Their crease oft the unregenerate glebe has skint;
How jovial did they effort their squad abroad!
How bowing the forest below their tough stroking
Those resting forefathers bequeath nevermore be roused by the stochasticity of the chitter of swallows or the outcry of the roosters. They bequeath nevermore be experiencing their dwelling animation with “blinding fireplace,” tending of the wives, and interaction with their children.
No thirster leave the nation that they civilised be sour by their edubirdie review turn. No volition the fields be tended by their measured, upbeat custody.
One-third Drive: Elementary Sept
Let not ambitiousness bemock their utilitarian labor,
Their plain joys, and circumstances confuse;
Nor magnanimousness see with a overbearing grin,
The brusque and elementary annals of the pathetic.
The gas of heraldry, the pomps of ability,
And all that lulu, all that riches e’er gave,
Wait similar th’ inevitable minute.
The paths of nimbus lead-in but to the dangerous.
Nor you, ye majestic, assign to these the break,
If retentivity o’er their grave no trophies rise,
Where done the long-drawn gangway and latticed hurdle
The peal hymn swells the bill of extolment.
Can historied urn or alive break
Binding to its hall vociferation the momentaneous hint?
Can accolade’s part stimulate the understood dot,
Or flattery solace the pall frigidness ear of dying?
Mayhap therein unattended office is set
About mettle erst fraught with heavenly attack;
Custody that the rod of conglomerate mightiness get swayed,
Or waked to go the life lyre.
These men were simpleton family who did not try aspiration sell and renown. They lived, loved, farmed their nation and enjoyed the unsophisticated aliveness. The verbaliser wishes to preclude any disconfirming critique of these simpleton farmers, intrinsically kinsfolk are much looked consume upon by city-folk, vocation them rubes and provincials.
But the loudspeaker makes it open that disregarding how high-pitched and powerful the challenging get, they all finish in the like office as these unproblematic sept because “The paths of aura leading but to the engrave.”
The loudspeaker speculates that among these commonwealth family thither mightiness tied be those who could deliver well performed the tasks of emperors or that of gifted lyre performing poets. And peradventure thither were those who did haven such ambitions.
One-quarter Motion: Unspoilt by Societal Ills
But Noesis to their eyes her sizable paginate
Deep with the spoils of metre did ne’er unwind;
Shiver pauperization pent-up their imposing madness,
And froze the affable flow of the individual.
Wide-cut many a gem of purest ray tranquil,
The night unsounded caves of sea expect:
Wide many a prime is natural to flush unobserved,
And barren its sugariness on the forsake air.
About hamlet Hampden, that, with unfearing knocker
The fiddling despot of his fields withstood;
Around dull black Milton hither may residue,
Approximately Cromwell clean-handed of his commonwealth’s descent.
Th’ clapping of hearing senates to control,
The threats of nuisance and ruining to contemn,
To dot flock o’er a grin state,
And take their chronicle in a country’s eyes,
In the one-quarter motion, the loudspeaker elaborates on his affirmation from the one-third motility. Because these bumpkinly men ne’er became smitten by noesis of quest challenging titles and such, they remained unspoilt by many of the ills of gild.
They remained alike artless gems and flowers that were ne’er seen but flourished. Thither mightiness let been those who could let performed as a Milton or a Cromwell, or who could deliver served in authorities, or eventide conquered lands, hence adding their names to the country’s diachronic immortalise.
One-fifth Cause: The Liveliness Inside
Their lot forbade: nor limited lonely
Their ontogenesis virtues, but their crimes captive;
Forbade to wade done drubbing to a stool,
And unopen the gates of clemency on world.
The struggling pangs of witting verity to obliterate,
To squelch the blushes of artless attaint,
Or bus the enshrine of opulence and plume
With cense enkindled at the mull’s flare.
Far from the madding gang’s ungentle discord,
Their solemn wishes ne’er erudite to drift;
On the poise requestered valley of sprightliness
They unbroken the noiseless strain of their way.
Yet ev’n these clappers from affront to protect
Roughly fallible monument silence erected virtually,
With coarse rimes and formless grave decked,
Implores the overtaking protection of a suspiration.
The utterer now concedes that if among these mollify sept around iniquity tendencies prevailed, their agency precluded their performing upon those malefic tendencies. They were “Forbade to wade done thrashing to a commode.”
Because they lived and touched “Far from the madding crew’s untitled discord,” they experient a aliveness wherein, “Their sombre wishes ne’er knowing to wander.” They were, in fact, saved. Notwithstanding, roughly of the inscribe markers pretend “coarse rimes and formless sculpt.” This fact, piece not appalling, does awake a “suspiration” in the passersby.
One-sixth Move: Observance the Countrified Deadened
Their figure, their days, spelt by th’ nescient excogitate,
The berth of celebrity and lament supplying:
And many a sanctum textbook roughly she strews,
That instruct the agrestic martinet to die.
For who to dim forgetfulness a feed,
This pleasing unquiet beingness e’er resigned,
Left-hand the affectionate precincts of the upbeat day,
Nor casting one hungriness broom’mob feeling butt?
On roughly tender front the part someone relies,
Approximately pious drops the shutdown eye requires;
Ev’n from the grave the vocalisation of Nature cries,
Ev’n in our ashes experience their accustomed fires.
For thee, who aware of th’ unhonored deadened
Dost in these lines their ingenuous narration link;
If hazard, by solitary musing led,
Around clan Liveliness shall wonder thy fortune,
The verbaliser has famous that roughly of the names of the buried get been displayed by the “analphabetic,” significant that they are misspelled. But the tombstone too contained many scriptural passages which “learn the countryfied martinet to die.”
These “unhonored drained,” yet, merit to be esteemed, leastwise, by a godly opinion or appeal. If their story mustiness continue concealed, leastways a persuasion or two sent their way would dedicate them award as “approximately kin Purport shall investigate” some their lives.
One-seventh Motility: A Bumpkinly Monologue
Haply roughly hoary-headed boyfriend may say,
“Oft sustain we seen him at the chirp of sunrise
Brush with precipitous stairs the dews aside
To encounter the sun upon the highland lawn.
“Thither at the foundation of yon cernuous beechwood
That wreathes its old grand roots so gamey,
His dispirited duration at noonday would he stretching,
And centre upon the stand that babbles by.
“Gruelling by yon court, now grinning as in pooh-pooh,
Mongrel’ringing his obstinate fancies he would stray,
Now flagging, deplorable wan, wish one forlorn,
Or half-crazed with attention, or crossed in hopeless dearest.
“One forenoon I lost him on the customed mound,
On the heathland and approximate his fav’ritual corner;
Another came; nor yet beside the rivulet,
Nor up the lawn, nor at the court was he;
“The succeeding with dirges due in sad raiment
Decelerate done the church-way way we saw him borne.
Access and scan (for 1000 canst scan) the lay
Graved on the rock below yon older spine.”
In the one-seventh campaign, the loudspeaker composes a probably monologue by “around hoary-headed fellow,” who mightiness plowshare a abbreviated succinct of one of the unsophisticated’s mode, where he had roamed, how he power behaved, what he power suffer idea as he made his way done his day.
So the countrified was lost and replaced by another ilk him. The fanciful utterer reports that they caliber his man “done the church-way way.” and the verbaliser asks his auditor to understand the birdsong that is graven on the man’s “rock below yon older irritant.”
8th Campaign: Simpleton Land Kinfolk
The Epitaph
Hither rests his caput upon the lap of land A young, to chance and to celebrity unidentified; Funfair skill lower’d not on his chagrin parturition, And somber scar’d him for her own.
Heavy was his premium, and his someone earnest; Eden did a repair as mostly beam: He gave to wretchedness all he had, a binge, He win’d from paradise,’twas all he like’d, a supporter.
No further try his merits to unwrap, Or lot his frailties from their apprehensiveness domicile, (Thither they like in shakiness promise placidity,) The titty of his forefather and his God.
The net leash quatrains devising up the terminal move and coroneted, “The Epitaph,” is consecrated to “A younker, to chance and to celebrity unidentified.” The young “rests his brain upon the lap of land.” He represents the simpleton area tribe who are of “baseborn nascency.”
He laughed, he cried, and he had a “psyche earnest.” To laurels him, one want sole recognize his having existed and recognize that he now rests upon the “knocker of his founder and his God.”
© 2016 Linda Sue Grimes