How does Gray depict nature in Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard?

Thomas Gray, in Elegy Written in a Country Courtyard, treats nature with the utmost respect. According to the poem, nature holds all of mankind at the same level.

The speaker considers the fact that in death, there is no difference between great and common people.

Based upon this, nature is very different from mankind. Mankind draws lines, makes excuses, and believes itself to be (sometimes) all-powerful. Nature, in the end, has the last say--all will die and return to the ground.

At different points throughout the elegy, nature's power is defined. In the first stanza, the end of the day ("and leaves the world to darkness") signifies that all work is over. The darkness, ruled by nature, is more powerful than mankind.

In the second stanza, the peacefulness of the air and landscape around the speaker dictates the speaker's mood. Later, the "complaining" owl shows its distaste regarding the fact that her "secret bower" has been disturbed by mankind (the speaker).

Throughout the poem, Gray shows his honor of nature by constantly admitting to the power of nature. Therefore, Gray treats nature with the utmost respect given that nature, unlike mankind, does not prejudice. Instead, the fact that, through nature, the common man is elevated shows the great power which nature has.

What is Thomas Gray's view on nature in "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard?"

With elements of Romanticism in his poem, Thomas Gray's first four stanzas express a communion of nature with the souls of the dead country people.  For instance, the words descriptive of nature, "the world  to darkness," "the solemn stillness of the air," "the "moping owl," and the "moldering heap" of turf in the first four stanzas connote death, its darkness, and its immobility.

In a further comparison, the lives of the poor, country people who are buried in this obscure churchyard have been unfulfilled just as parts of nature are ignored.  For instance, in stanza 14, Gray writes,

Full many a gem of purest ray serene

  The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear:

Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,

  And waste its sweetness on the desert air.

Similarly, the "moping owl" and the flower whose blush is unseen serve to reflect the melancholy meditation of the speaker, who bemoans that not only man, but nature, too, is ignored. Further, in stanza 26, nature is, indeed, in sympathy with the speaker's inner mood:

There at the foot of yonder nodding beech

  That wreathes its old fantastic roots so high,

His listless length at noontide would he stretch,

   And pore upon the brook that babbles by.

And, yet, earlier, in stanza 7, when alive, man has been nature's superior:  "How bowed the woods beneath their [the farmers] sturdy stroke." But, in the end, the speaker reflects that he may be  remembered after death as one who lay close to nature whom he loved,

...at the foot of yonder nodding beech

   That wreathes its old fantastic roots so high,

His listless length at noontide would he stretch,

   And pour upon the brook that babbles by.

Imagining his epitaph, the speaker perceives himself resting his head "upon the lap of Earth, reposing in the "bosom of his Father and his God."