Page:Pleasant Memories of Pleasant Lands.djvu/359

 334 GRAY S MONUMENT.

Never have I beheld such a display of magnificence as in this favorite abode of England s Queen. Was it a bee, from the greenhouse flowers, that buzzed in my ear, &quot; cui Jjono ? &quot; or a voice in the musing heart ?

One prayer of grateful poverty Shall better soothe the soul.

Surfeited with display, we drew near the village church, whose precincts the lyre of Gray has hallowed. Rain-drops hung heavily among the drooping branches, and weighed down the slender vines that crept over the low mossy gravestones. It was not difficult to imagine the slender form of the bard, meditating in this secluded spot, his brow pale from the studious cloisters of Cambridge, for he often sought relaxation and re freshment from learned toils amid these rural shades. Love of the mother, as has been the case with so many distinguished men, predominated through his life, and deepened at its close. An epitaph from his hand to her memory, in that same quiet churchyard, records, that &quot; she had shown the most tender offices of love to many children, one only of whom had the unhappiness to survive her.&quot;

At a short distance is his own lofty monument, on which are engraven, in large characters, stanzas from his Elegy. It is erected in ornamental grounds be longing to the Penn family, who keep them open for visitants and strangers. Their own pleasant mansion is seen through embowering trees, where Gray was

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