 The poem most likely originated in the poetry that Gray composed in 1742 . William Mason , in Memoirs , discussed his friend Gray and the origins of Elegy : " I am inclined to believe that the Elegy in a Country Church @-@ yard was begun , if not concluded , at this time [ August 1742 ] also : Though I am aware that as it stands at present , the conclusion is of a later date ; how that was originally I shall show in my notes on the poem . " Mason 's argument was a guess , but he argued that one of Gray 's poems from the Eton Manuscript , a copy of Gray 's handwritten poems owned by Eton College , was a 22 @-@ stanza rough draft of the Elegy called " Stanza 's Wrote in a Country Church @-@ Yard " . The manuscript copy contained many ideas which were reworked and revised as he attempted to work out the ideas that would later form the Elegy . A later copy was entered into Gray 's commonplace book and a third version , included in an 18 December 1750 letter , was sent to Thomas Wharton . The draft sent to Walpole was subsequently lost . 
