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
Sapphic stanza in Polish poetry to Greek and Roman literature as a model. Jan Kochanowski, the most prominent of a family of poets, wrote lyrical poems, often in imitation of Horace. The classic Polish Sapphic stanza was thus 11(5+6) / 11(5+6) / 11(5+6) / 5, typically rhymed "a a b b". Jan Kochanowski used this Sapphic stanza several times in his "Cantos", "Laments", and "Psalms". An excellent example is "Lament XVI". Mikołaj Sęp-Szarzyński, who was the author of "Rymy, abo wiersze polskie" ("The rhymes or Polish poems") and Sebastian Grabowiecki, who was the author of "Setnik rymów duchownych" ("Spiritual Rhymes") also used Sapphic stanzas in