Thomas Gray, ‘Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College’.
To each his suff’rings: all are men,
Condemn’d alike to groan,
The tender for another’s pain;
Th’ unfeeling for his own.
Yet ah! why should they know their fate?
Since sorrow never comes too late,
And happiness too swiftly flies.
Thought would destroy their paradise.
No more; where ignorance is bliss,
’Tis folly to be wise …
Written in 1742 when Gray was in his mid-twenties, and around ten years after his own time as a student at Eton – the prestigious public school in Berkshire, England – this poem sees Gray reflecting on his own schooldays and the value of education more generally. The poem gave us the phrase ‘ignorance is bliss’.
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Answer:
Thomas Gray, ‘Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College’.
To each his suff’rings: all are men,
Condemn’d alike to groan,
The tender for another’s pain;
Th’ unfeeling for his own.
Yet ah! why should they know their fate?
Since sorrow never comes too late,
And happiness too swiftly flies.
Thought would destroy their paradise.
No more; where ignorance is bliss,
’Tis folly to be wise …
Written in 1742 when Gray was in his mid-twenties, and around ten years after his own time as a student at Eton – the prestigious public school in Berkshire, England – this poem sees Gray reflecting on his own schooldays and the value of education more generally. The poem gave us the phrase ‘ignorance is bliss’.
Explanation:
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