Elegy by thomas gray

By Thomas Gray, 1716 - 1771 written shortly after the death of a close friend and it mourns the death, not of great and famous people, but the common man. It is important inso much as it elevates the common man. He wonders what great achievements the common man may have gained if he had been given the opportunity. The poem comments that nothing can bring the dead back to life so that all the advantages of the wealthy are useless in a churchyard