explain how the poet’s description of trees, beetles, flowers, pastures, and a sunset affects the tone and conveys the central theme of the poem "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard."

The poem "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard" explores many themes, the chief of which is the inevitability of death. Death comes to all human beings, rich or poor, high or low. The poet describes a typical evening scene in the countryside. All the creatures of the woods are making their way to their shelters as the lone farmer walks home with his herd. The poet describes the call of a solitary owl, and the ancient elms and yew trees under which the long-dead country folk are buried. This setting gives the poem a somber tone. By setting his poem at the hour of sunset, Thomas Gray invokes a melancholy mood, which is fitting for a poem that deals with the theme of death. By invoking the image of living beings returning to their rest at sunset and connecting it to the image of the village dead "resting" in the churchyard, Gray shows that death is part of the cycle of nature. In the last stanza he uses the image of the flower that blooms and withers away unseen to show that the farmers' lives are just as worthy as those of the rich and famous, though they live and die unknown and unpraised.