| 123 | https://www.dickenssearch.com/items/show/123 | 'Elegy' | | From a letter to Mary Boyle (3 December 1849). | Dickens, Charles | 'Elegy.' <em>The Letters of Charles Dickens. The Pilgrim Edition. </em><span>Edited by Graham Storey and K. J. Fielding. Volume 5 (1847-1849), p. 708-709. Oxford University Press, 1980.</span> | | <a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1849-12-03">1849-12-03</a> | | | Parody of Thomas Gray's 'Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard'. | | | <a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Poem">Poem</a> | 1849-12-03_Letter_To_Mary_Boyle_Elegy | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | <span>Dickens, Charles. 'Elegy' (3 December 1849). </span><em>Dickens Search.</em><span> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. </span><a href="https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1849-12-03_Letter_To_Mary_Boyle_Elegy" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1849-12-03_Letter_To_Mary_Boyle_Elegy</a>. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1849-12-03_Letter_To_Mary_Boyle_Elegy.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span>'Elegy' (3 December 1849).</span></a> | | <a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Letter">Letter</a> | | | | | | Written in a country churchyard. The small dog Spitz has given a shrill bark, And gone off with her tail uprais’d in air; I don’t know where she’s gone, it is so dark, And (what is more) I don’t think that I care. Now the gloom deepens like to that thick gloom Of which the Master of the School once spoke, Which can’t be swept away by any broom, And hangs enshrouding all things, like dense smoke. Within yon Castle Walls, of old admired, Where winking tapers in the windows doze, Each to a chamber snug and warm retir’d, Toe royst’ring wights of Rockingham repose! From them no more does Lady Teazle win Applause, fit tribute to her graces quaint: For them no more Sir Peter daubs his skin And looks out from a mist of flour and paint. The modest check and mien of “the young man”, The lunatic in custody next door, The mirth which Mrs Nickleby began, No longer interrupt their low-drawn snore. No more the host, as if he dealt at cards, Smiling deals lighted candles all about: No more the Fair inclusive of the Bard’s) Persist in blowing all the candles out. No more the Fair prolong the cheerful tread Of dancing feet until the lights low burn: No more the host, when they are gone to bed, Quickly retreats, foreboding their return. Let not Convention mock the cap and bells Which certain heads are not too wise to wear, Nor loftily disdain the voice that tells How harmless trifling purifies the air! Full many an impulse, generous and good, Has sprung from a light heart in cheery hours: Full many a wounded creature has withstood The thorns of life, rememb’ring its wild flowers. And so, may conjurors within that hall Again large watches cut, from loaves of bread: Again hot puddings bring, with magic call, From the hat sacred to a rev’rend head! For him who, mindful of that honored time, Does in these lines its artless tale relate, So read his fate in very feeble rhyme Written in chalk upon the churchyard Gate! The Epitaph Here rests his head upon his native soil A Youth who lived once, in the public whim: His death occasion’d by a mortal Boil, Which settled on his brain, and settled him. | 18491203 | | | | | | | | | |