 Gray 's life was surrounded by loss and death , and many people that he knew died painfully and alone . In 1749 , several events occurred that caused Gray stress . On 7 November , Mary Antrobus , Gray 's aunt , died ; her death devastated his family . The loss was compounded a few days later by news that his friend since childhood Horace Walpole had been almost killed by two highwaymen . Although Walpole survived and later joked about the event , the incident disrupted Gray 's ability to pursue his scholarship . The events dampened the mood that Christmas , and Antrobus 's death was ever fresh in the minds of the Gray family . As a side effect , the events caused Gray to spend much of his time contemplating his own mortality . As he began to contemplate various aspects of mortality , he combined his desire to determine a view of order and progress present in the Classical world with aspects of his own life . With spring 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 . 
