Elegy

St Mary the Virgin, Mainwell, Northamptonshire

We all know the Thomas Gray's Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard that begins: 

The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,

         The lowing herd wind slowly o'er the lea,

The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,

         And leaves the world to darkness and to me.

   To me, this poem is the perfect elegy for my brother. Chris was quiet, unassuming, loved to contemplate the countryside or the sea. But is too long to quote here in its entirety although the following lines are perfect.

Full many a gem of purest ray serene,

         The dark unfathom'd caves of ocean bear:

Full many a flow'r is born to blush unseen,

         And waste its sweetness on the desert air.

    So I shall pause a while and remember his sweetness and end with the poem's closing epitaph.

Here rests his head upon the lap of Earth

       A youth to Fortune and to Fame unknown.

Fair Science frown'd not on his humble birth,

       And Melancholy mark'd him for her own.

Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere,

       Heav'n did a recompense as largely send:

He gave to Mis'ry all he had, a tear,

       He gain'd from Heav'n ('twas all he wish'd) a friend.

No farther seek his merits to disclose,

       Or draw his frailties from their dread abode,

(There they alike in trembling hope repose)

       The bosom of his Father and his God.