Famous Elegiac Lyric Poems by Famous Poets

These are examples of famous Elegiac Lyric poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous elegiac lyric poems. These examples illustrate what a famous elegiac lyric poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).

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The Dream

by George (Lord) Byron
 I

Our life is twofold; Sleep hath its own world,
A boundary between the things misnamed
Death and existence: Sleep hath its own world,
And a wide realm of wild reality,
And dreams in their development have breath,
And tears, and tortures, and the touch of joy;
They leave a weight upon our waking thoughts,
They take a weight from off waking toils,
They do divide our being;...Read more of this...

Alas! the period of adolescence reaches home. The

by Omar Khayyam
Alas! the period of adolescence reaches home. The
springtime of our pleasures slips away! That bird of
gaiety which is called youth, alas! I know not when it
came nor when it flew away!
311...Read more of this...

Epigramma in Duos montes Amosclivum Et Bilboreum

by Andrew Marvell
 Farfacio.

Cernis ut ingenti distinguant limite campum
Montis Amos clivi Bilboreique juga!
Ille stat indomitus turritis undisque saxis:
Cingit huic laetum Fraximus alta Caput.
Illi petra minax rigidis cervicibus horret:
Huic quatiunt viridis lenia colla jubas.
Fulcit Atlanteo Rupes ea vertice coelos:
Collis at hic humeros subjicit Herculeos.
Hic ceu carceribus visum sylvaque coercet:
Ille Oculos alter dum quasi meta trahit.
Ille Giganteum surgit ceu Pelion Ossa:
Hic agit ut Pindi...Read more of this...

In Memoriam A. H. H.: 5. Sometimes I Hold it half a Sin

by Alfred Lord Tennyson
 I sometimes hold it half a sin
To put in words the grief I feel;
For words, like Nature, half reveal
And half conceal the Soul within.
But, for the unquiet heart and brain,
A use in measured language lies;
The sad mechanic exercise,
Like dull narcotics, numbing pain.
In words, like weeds, I'll wrap me o'er,
Like coarsest clothes against the cold;
But that large grief which these...Read more of this...

Lycidas

by John Milton
 In this Monody the author bewails a learned Friend, unfortunately
drowned in his passage from Chester on the Irish Seas, 1637;
and, by occasion, foretells the ruin of our corrupted Clergy, 
then in their height.


YET once more, O ye laurels, and once more,
Ye myrtles brown, with ivy never sere,
I come to pluck your berries harsh and crude,
And with forced fingers rude
Shatter...Read more of this...

Memoriam A. H. H.: 67. When on my bed the moonlight fall

by Alfred Lord Tennyson
 When on my bed the moonlight falls,
I know that in thy place of rest
By that broad water of the west,
There comes a glory on the walls:
Thy marble bright in dark appears,
As slowly steals a silver flame
Along the letters of thy name,
And o'er the number of thy years.
The mystic glory swims away;
From off my bed the moonlight dies;
And closing eaves...Read more of this...

In Memoriam A. H. H.: Is it then regret for buried time

by Alfred Lord Tennyson
 Is it, then, regret for buried time
That keenlier in sweet April wakes,
And meets the year, and gives and takes
The colours of the crescent prime?
Not all: the songs, the stirring air,
The life re-orient out of dust,
Cry thro' the sense to hearten trust
In that which made the world so fair.
Not all regret: the face will shine
Upon me, while I muse alone;
And...Read more of this...

Aliter

by Andrew Marvell
 Regibus haec posuit Ludovicus Templa futuris;
Gratior ast ipsi Castra fuere Domus....Read more of this...

What slender youth (QUIS MULTA GRACILIS)

by Horace
     What slender youth, besprinkled with perfume,
         Courts you on roses in some grotto's shade?
       Fair Pyrrha, say, for whom
         Your yellow hair you braid,
     So trim, so simple! Ah!...Read more of this...

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