Elegiacal Poems

Elegies

A mournful song, in stately measure, praising the dead for his virtues, full of the grief that remains with the living, believing in the happiness of the departed and hoping for a blessed reunion in the hereafter, this is the typical elegy. On the one side it shades off into the ode, some poems being susceptible of classification in both groups; on the other it may take the form of sonnets, many of which answer every requirement of the dirge. Many poems are therefore elegiacal that are not strictly elegies. A rigid classification is never necessary but an association of these beautiful pieces, all thoroughly impregnated with the personal grief of the author, gives to each a greater power, a more thrilling significance. They arise from the deepest emotion and so are the offspring of divinest inspiration; love is in the heart of the writer and so the flight of song is best sustained; they are intended to show to the world respect and admiration for the one whose virtues they celebrate and so they are refined and polished to the last degree. Where grief, love and a hope to give earthly immortality to the object of his affection move the poet, we expect the finest efforts of his genius and we are not disappointed.

This Part contains some of the grandest, the most perfect productions of poetic skill.

When man sees his loved one laid away forever, he naturally longs to preserve the memory of the departed to succeeding generations, to erect some permanent memorial. Funereal monuments are characteristic of every race and have proved the most enduring records of the past. The inscriptions upon these tombs are early records of the elegiac spirit.

The epitaph is elegy in miniature. "To define an epitaph is useless; everyone knows it is an inscription on a tomb. An epitaph is indeed commonly panegyrical, because we are seldom distinguished by a stone but by our friends," says Dr. Johnson.

This epitaph was written by Robert Wilde in the seventeenth century:

Here lies a piece of Christ; a star in dust;
A vein of gold; a china dish that must

Be used in heaven, when God shall feast the just.

The two epitaphs from Ben Jonson given next are well known and often alluded to.

On Elizabeth L. b.

Wouldst thou hear what man can say
Reader, stay.

In a little?

Underneath this stone doth lie
As much beauty as could die:
Which in life did harbour give
To more virtue than doth live.
If at all she had a fault,

Leave it buried in this vault.
One name was Elizabeth,

The other, let it sleep with death:

Fitter, when it died, to tell,

Than that it lived at all.

Farewell!

Epitaph on the Countess of Pem

broke

Underneath this sable hearse

Lies the subject of all verse,

SIDNEY'S sister, PEMBROKE'S mother;
Death! ere thou hast slain another,
Learned and fair, and good as she,
Time shall throw a dart at thee.