The church building has been pivotal to man's spiritual and religious life for centuries.For many the interior of a church is literally their one to one with God. The interiors, whether soaring or simple, ornate or minimal, are built for communion, for worship.Outside and surrounding our many churches is the churchyard; the burial ground, the repository for faithful souls. An all-weather idyll of calm around where many a poet has sat and contemplated the surrounding world.The stone may be old, weathered and worn. The trees and grass overgrown and wind-blown but this is a sanctuary, a shelter from frenetic life. Moments here in reflective solitude make thought redemptive. This is unquestioning ground that makes no demands on those who seek to stop and wonder.Within this volume of glorious verse questions are asked, decisions are made. And whether of Faith or not this oasis of calm brings solitude, renewal and an awareness that Life can produce answers to the most pressing of problems.
At first thought this seems an unlikely area to find fine poetry. The "Graveyard Poets", also known as "Churchyard Poets or "the Boneyard Boys" began in pre-romantic days with a leaning towards gloom, melancholy and the general decay of churchyards. It should be remembered that in the 18th Century City graveyards were a teeming mass of overcrowding and disease, their country brethren better but hardly idylls of worship.What would eventually lead to the Gothic literary genre began, in the main, with reflections by Christian clergymen upon God, mortality and the assumed after-life.And in their musings are classics from such talented poets as Thomas Gray, Thomas Parnell, James Thomson and Edward Young together with many others who elevate words from a perhaps murky underworld to examples of poetic beauty which few can rival. This volume comes to you from Portable Poetry, a specialized imprint from Deadtree Publishing. Our range is large and growing and covers single poets, themes, and many compilations.
Thomas Gray is world famous as the author of "Gray's Elegy," more properly known as "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard." He did not write very much, but he did write more than just his most famous poem. This collection is a recording of the 1768 Dodsley edition, the primary publication of his poetry that he published during his lifetime. It consists of only 10 poems, written mostly during the 1740s. Although he continued to write after 1768, it does seem as though he regarded this collection as the definitive body of the work he most valued.
These poems are remarkably varied. From the solemn philosophy of the "Elegy", he moves to dramatic portrayals of history and even some rather humorous verse, though always with a moral tone. I invite the reader to enjoy this small collection of Gray, in which one can get a sense of the man behind the verse, the man who wrote the immortal lines of the "Elegy." A Freshwater Seas production.
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