Elegy written in a country churchyard by Thomas Gray
Uno dei capolavori della letteratura inglese pre-romantica, vi offro le prime quattro stanze per farvi apprezzare la musicalità delle allitterazioni, delle assonanze e delle onomatopee, sono “heroic quatrains”, quartine eroiche, di versi decasillabici, stamattina provo a iniziare a spiegarla in classe…
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1 The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
2 The lowing herd wind slowly o’er the lea,
3 The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,
4 And leaves the world to darkness and to me.
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5 Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight,
6 And all the air a solemn stillness holds,
7 Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight,
8 And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds;
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9 Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tower
10 The moping owl does to the moon complain
11 Of such, as wandering near her secret bower,
12 Molest her ancient solitary reign.
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13 Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree’s shade,
14 Where heaves the turf in many a mouldering heap,
15 Each in his narrow cell for ever laid,
16 The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep.
