Poetic form

What is a Elegy?

Definition

A poem of mourning and consolation for someone or something lost.

The elegy is poetry's room for grief. From Whitman's elegies for Lincoln to Tennyson's In Memoriam, the form follows an ancient emotional arc: lament (sorrow spoken aloud), praise (the dead remembered at their best), and consolation (some peace, however partial, found).

Unlike a eulogy — prose, spoken at services — an elegy is a poem and needn't be about a person at all: poets write elegies for childhood homes, languages, glaciers. If it grieves, it's elegy.

Structure of a elegy

Three traditional movements: lament → praise → consolation
No fixed meter or rhyme required
Often addresses the lost one directly

How to write a elegy

Begin with one concrete memory, not an abstraction about loss.
Let the middle praise specifically: what only this person did or was.
Don't force resolution; honest elegy can end at 'still here, still missing you.'

14 elegy examples

Classic and original elegy poems, free to read in full.

What She Left

The QuillOak Editors

We looked for you everywhere those first weeks —then found you everywhere after:in the way I fold towels in thirds,

10 lines · free verse

The Spot by the Door

The QuillOak Editors

There's a worn place on the floorboardswhere you waited every day,sure — completely, dog-heartedly sure —

11 lines · free verse

The Sunbeam

The QuillOak Editors

The sunbeam still comes in at ten,crosses the rug like always,and waits.

10 lines · free verse

Wherever the Good Ones Go

The QuillOak Editors

I don't know much about forever,but I know this:somewhere, whatever's kind in the universe

10 lines · free verse

To an Athlete Dying Young

A. E. Housman · 1896

The time you won your town the raceWe chaired you through the market-place;Man and boy stood cheering by,

28 lines · elegy

Crossing the Bar

Alfred, Lord Tennyson · 1889

Sunset and evening star,And one clear call for me!And may there be no moaning of the bar,

17 lines · lyric

On My First Son

Ben Jonson · 1616

Farewell, thou child of my right hand, and joy,My sin was too much hope of thee, loved boy;Seven years th' wert lent to me, and I thee pay,

12 lines · elegy

Remembrance

Emily Brontë · 1845

Cold in the earth—and the deep snow piled above thee,Far, far, removed, cold in the dreary grave!Have I forgot, my only Love, to love thee,

33 lines · elegy

In Flanders Fields

John McCrae · 1915

In Flanders fields the poppies blowBetween the crosses, row on row,That mark our place; and in the sky

15 lines · rondeau

Requiescat

Oscar Wilde · 1881

Tread lightly, she is nearUnder the snow,Speak gently, she can hear

21 lines · lyric

Requiem

Robert Louis Stevenson · 1887

Under the wide and starry sky,Dig the grave and let me lie.Glad did I live and gladly die,

8 lines · lyric

Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard

Thomas Gray · 1751

It would almost seem that poetry has for its greatest mission the lesson of a proper humility.The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea.

128 lines · elegy

O Captain! My Captain!

Walt Whitman · 1865

O Captain! my Captain ! our fearful trip is done,The ship has weathered every rack, the prize we sought is won,The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,

24 lines · elegy

Thanatopsis

William Cullen Bryant · 1817

To him who in the love of Nature holdsCommunion with her visible forms, she speaksA various language; for his gayer hours

81 lines · elegy

Common questions

What's the difference between an elegy and a eulogy?

A eulogy is a speech given at a funeral; an elegy is a poem of mourning. Many funeral readings are elegies read aloud.