Poet Thomas Gray

Born December 26, 1716, Thomas Gray was an English poet, letter-writer, classical scholar, and fellow at Pembroke College, Cambridge. He published only 13 poems in his lifetime, although they were so popular he was offered the role of Poet Laureate. His best known poem is Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard (1751). Here are two of the stanzas: 

Let not Ambition mock their useful toil,

         Their homely joys, and destiny obscure;

Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile

         The short and simple annals of the poor.

The boast of heraldry, the pomp of pow'r,

         And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave,

Awaits alike th' inevitable hour.

         The paths of glory lead but to the grave.

Lincoln, who brooded on mortality, loved the poem. He referred to his own early years with that line, "the short and simple annals of the poor."

Also: the poem was the source of the title Humphrey Cobb's 1935 novel "Paths of Glory," which Stanley Kubrick made into his 1957 film of the same name.