Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard nearing, Gray questioned if his own life would enter into a sort of rebirth cycle or, should he die, if there would be anyone to remember him. Gray's meditations during spring 1750 turned to how individuals' reputations would survive. Eventually, Gray remembered some lines of poetry that he composed in 1742 following the death of West, a poet he knew. Using that previous material, he began to compose a poem that would serve as an answer to the various questions he was pondering. On 3 June 1750, Gray moved to Stoke Poges, and on 12 June he completed "Elegy Written
Lines Composed in a Wood on a Windy Day five and nine, as well as the erasures before "sunshine" and "above" suggest that the poem was written hastily. One interpretation by Winidred Gerin says that in the poem "emotion and expression have achieved a fusion as felicitous as it is rare in Brontë's writing, is probably the best poem she ever wrote, though not the most characteristic". The poem is based upon an actual experience of Brontë's. A note stating "Composed in the Long-Plantation on a wild bright windy day", was written in Anne Brontë's hand at the bottom of the manuscript and the "Long-Plantation" was identified by Edward