Page 139 - 100 Best Loved Poems - Teaching Unit

“Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard”
by Thomas Gray, pages 19-22

Vocabulary
knell – to summon
droning – boring
hamlet – home
clarion – a medieval trumpet
ply – carry out
lisp – a speech impediment, slurred speech
glebe – soil
jocund – lighthearted
disdainful – scornful
annals – history books
impute – to assign to, credit
pealing – ringing
genial – friendly
circumscribed – confined
ignoble – shameful
sequester – isolate
uncouth – uncivilized
elegy – a poem of lament and sorrow
forlorn – sad
dirges – a funeral hymn

1. At what time of day does the poem take place?

2. To what sense does the second stanza appeal?

3. Yew trees were often planted in cemeteries. What is the "narrow cell" referred to in line
15?

4. What time of day is it in the fifth stanza?

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