For my final essay proposal, I’m choosing the poem Elegy in a country churchyard. The reason why I’ve chosen this poem is because to me it gives reflection on different concepts of morality, legacy, and potential of everyday lives. What I found very interesting about this poem is that Thomas Gray was able to make  something so simple, rural dead into dignity and agency to stop the centered belief on class of its time. The stanza that stood out to me was:

 “Full many a gem of purest ray serene, 

The dark, unfathom’d caves of the ocean bear: 

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

And waste its sweetness on the desert air.”

This part stood out to me because he uses nature to get his point across about how we as humans miss great times due to our circumstances in life when he speaks on the unripe gem underneath the ocean and the flowers unseen in the desert . When he said “The “gem of purest ray serene” to me it shows that there’s essential value, regardless of acknowledging. The flow’r is “wasting its sweetness “ shows that is going unnoticed and unrecognized (stanza 14)

When Thomas Gray said “unfathom’d” to me it makes me think of something unknowable .The “ blush unseen” speaks on the flowers beauty while still trying to project in a sense modesty because everyone I’m assuming knows a flower is beautiful so it being unseen is a form of modesty which can be used for humans as well .We know that “waste” isn’t a good thing (stanza 14) so together all these metaphors become an eye opener for other things that’s going on in social circumstances that continues to not let people shine and their talents .  This stanza to me asks us to really look and examine how we as humans value our lives and accomplishments. There’s poets like Milton, or leaders like Cromwell that was mentioned in the poem that many people could have had potential like them but went unnoticed because of educational and financial opportunities in life .