The setting of the poem, in a graveyard, naturally prompts thoughts of death as the great leveler, who renders everyone equal. This theme is expressed eloquently and at some length and is summed up in the celebrated line: “The paths of glory lead but to the grave.” Despite this, however, Gray admits that some achieve more in life than others and that those buried in this humble churchyard were probably prevented from achieving the heights of ambition by their poverty and lack of knowledge.

He laments the flowers “born to blush unseen” and describes the world’s being deprived of their influence as a waste. There may have been hearts “pregnant with celestial fire” or potential empire-builders—“Some village-Hampden” or “mute inglorious Milton” among these people. There may also have been “Some Cromwell, guiltless of his country’s blood.”

The differences between these types of potential and the way the poet treats them reveal a lot about his priorities. The mute inglorious Miltons have been robbed by circumstance. Education and at least some degree of wealth would have allowed them to achieve something magnificent, perhaps even an epic on the scale of Paradise Lost.

The would-be Cromwells, however, are more fortunate, for political careers generally end in failure and often in tyranny and infamy. They are saved from crime by their poverty and obscurity. The village-Hampdens, lovers of liberty, have not quite suffered the fate of the poets who write no poems, for they have at least been able to withstand petty tyranny.

The final epitaph suggests that, despite the disadvantages under which the youth labored, his obscure rural life meant more than many lives of greater fame than ambition. Since he lives in “The bosom of his Father and his God” it appears that not all the dead are alike, though Gray’s comments on the vanity of earthly greatness (and political power in particular) remain in force.

In what ways does the poem relate to issues as regards fame and reputation, peaceful ways of life, ambition?

Gray's poem focuses on the simple, unknown people buried in a country churchyard. They have never had the opportunity to achieve fame or fortune, but Gray's narrator nevertheless exalts their ordinary lives as having meaning, virtue, and value that should be celebrated.

In the end, the rich, the ambitious, and the powerful are no different from peaceful, common people in the churchyard, the speaker says. As he notes, all the fame and pomp a person has in life cannot save him from death:

The paths of glory lead but to the grave.

The speaker, walking amid the graves of the humble, wonders if they don't in fact lead better lives than the famous:

Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife,

Their sober wishes never learn'd to stray;

Along the cool sequester'd vale of life

They kept the noiseless tenor of their way.

Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere