 In the 1930s and 1940s , critics emphasised the content of the poem , and some felt that it fell short of what was necessary to make it truly great . In 1930 , William Empson , while praising the form of the poem as universal , argued against its merits because of its potential political message . He claimed that the poem " as the context makes clear " , means that " 18th @-@ century England had no scholarship system of <unk> <unk> aux talents . This is stated as pathetic , but the reader is put into a mood in which one would not try to alter it ... By comparing the social arrangement to Nature he makes it seem inevitable , which it was not , and gives it a dignity which was undeserved . Furthermore , a gem does not mind being in a cave and a flower prefers not to be picked ; we feel that man is like the flower , as short @-@ lived , natural , and valuable , and this tricks us into feeling that he is better off without opportunities . " He continued : " the truism of the reflection in the churchyard , the universality and impersonality this gives to the style , claim as if by comparison that we ought to accept the injustice of society as we do the inevitability of death . " T. S. Eliot ’ s 1932 collection of essays contained a comparison of the elegy to the sentiment found in metaphysical poetry : " The feeling , the sensibility , expressed in the Country Churchyard ( to say nothing of Tennyson and Browning ) is cruder than that in the Coy Mistress . " Later , in 1947 , Cleanth Brooks pointed out that " In Gray 's poem , the imagery does seem to be intrinsically poetic ; the theme , true ; the ' statement ' , free from ambiguity , and free from irony . " After describing various aspects and complexities within the poem , Brooks provided his view on the poem 's conclusion : " the reader may not be altogether convinced , as I am not altogether convinced , that the epitaph with which the poem closes is adequate . But surely its intended function is clear , and it is a necessary function if the poem is to have a structure and is not to be considered merely a loose collection of poetic passages . " 
