Excerpt from Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard by Thomas Gray; This is the most descriptive and meaningful poem with which I am familiar. We were required to memorize this poem in sixth grade elementary school:

Nor you, ye Proud, impute to These the fault, 
     If Memory o'er their Tomb no Trophies raise,
Where through the long-drawn aisle and fretted
          vault 
     The pealing anthem swells the note of praise.

Can storied urn or animated bust
     Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath? 
Can Honor's voice provoke the silent dust,
     Or Flattery sooth the dull cold ear of Death?

Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid
     Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire;
Hands, that the rod of empire might have swayed, 
     Or waked to ecstasy the living lyre.

But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page 
     Rich with the spoils of time did ne'er unroll;
Chill Penury repressed their noble rage, 
     And froze the genial current of the soul.

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.

Some village-Hampden, that with dauntless breast 
     The little Tyrant of his fields withstood;
Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest, 
     Some Cromwell guiltless of his country's 
          blood.

The applause of listening senates to command, 
     The threats of pain and ruin to despise,
To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land,
     And read their history in a nation's eyes,