immortal _Elegy written in a Country Churchyard_--those exquisite verses
which breathe in every line the peace of an ideal country scene. To a
lover of Nature there can be nothing more beautiful than the lines--

Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight,
And all the air a solemn stillness holds;
Save where the beetle wheels his drony flight,
And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds.

Near the east wall of the church is the red brick tomb where Gray sleeps
his last sleep, and in the meadow by the chancel window stands the huge
cenotaph raised to his memory by John Penn. Of the little cottage where
he spent his summer vacations and wrote the _Elegy_ nothing now remains.
Gray was born in London in 1716, and died at Cambridge in 1771.

The interior of the church has lost its high old pews and galleries, so
that it lacks the interest it might have had, for until these were
removed the building was almost exactly what Gray knew so well.

[Illustration: _Mackenzie Fine Art Co._

STOKE POGES CHURCHYARD.

Associated with Gray's _Elegy_.]



WINDSOR