"It was just unfortunate, " said Rufai Mohammed, who said one of his Gray Line co-workers, Robert Neequaye was shot.

WSJ: Nine Injured Bystanders Are Expected to Survive

Robert L. Mack, Gray's definitive biographer, has observed that a recent edition of the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations draws from 15 stanzas and reproduces 13 of them whole.

WSJ: Meditation on Mortality | Elegy Written in a Country Church-Yard | Thomas Gray | Masterpiece by John J. Miller