Zero to Hero, a Guide - 9. Poetry Prompt 6 – Elegy

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Poetry Prompt 6

Let’s write an Elegy!

We have studied how verse form relates to certain patterns, like line length, using end-of-line rhymes for emphasis and memorability, and stanza patterns like the Tanka, Haiku and Couplet.

We can build on that by practicing with the four-line structure of the Elegy, which is like a pair of couplets split up to be a-b-a-b in its rhymes.

The Elegy belongs to a group of lyric poetry including the Pastoral and the Eclogue. This form is ancient, and city-bound Hellenistic Greeks used to dream of getting back to nature through such popular pieces. While the other two forms promoted bucolic bliss, the Elegy spoke of loss – more often than not, of one handsome shepherd being taken by someone rich and powerful to 'the city,' and his equally handsome and lonely shepherd mate having to deal with the separation.[1] In this sense Shakespeare's poem Venus and Adonis is an Elegy, as the goddess has to suffer the rather comic rebuff of the beautiful boy before ultimately losing him altogether.

With this, he breaketh from the sweet embrace

Of those fair arms which bound him to her breast,

And homeward through the dark laund[2] runs apace;

Leaves Love upon her back deeply distressed.

Look, how a bright star shooteth from the sky,

So glides he in night from Venus' eye.

Later, continuing to run from the goddesses' lust-driven pursuit, the beautiful teen boy is gored and killed by a boar. So in this we come to how the Elegy has been most often used in English: a lament for a departed loved one. Even though it is usually thought of as a death song, good Elegies still retain the element of nature as a sub-theme.

For our purposes of studying how to write one, I will stick with examples from, without question, one the greatest same-sex love poems ever written (and one sadly few bother to read today). Tenneyson's In Memoriam contains the lines:

'Tis better to have loved and lost

Than never to have loved at all.

And the man he loved, Arthur Hallam dead at age only 22, must have been a remarkable soul, for the expanse of In Memoriam is as passionate and sweeping as its near contemporary poem, The Leaves of Grass. Tennyson deals with his loss by questioning everything – Christian hypocrisy against same-sex love, faith versus reason, love being stronger than doubt and hate, even Creationism versus Evolution. And ever in the background is nature and how it brings the poet back to the presence of his beloved. Take for example these strophes from No. 95:

By night we lingered on the lawn,

For underfoot the herb was dry;

And genial warmth; and o'er the sky

The silvery haze of summer drawn;

 

And calm that let the tapers burn

Unwavering: not a cricket chirped:

The brook alone far-off was heard,

And on the board a fluttering urn:

 

But when those others, one by one,

Withdrew themselves from me and night,

And in the house light after light

Went out, and I was all alone,

 

Then strangely on the silence broke

The silent-speaking words, and strange

Was love's dumb cry defying change

To test his worth; and strangely spoke.

 

So word by word, and line by line,

The dead man touched me from the past,

And all at once it seemed at last

His living soul was flashed on mine,

 

And mine in his was wound and whirled[3]

About empyreal heights of thought,

And came on that which is, and caught

The deep pulsations of the world.

 

So, sucked from out the distant gloom

A breeze began to tremble o'er

The large leaves of the sycamore,

And fluctuate all the still perfume.

Here we can see what I mean when I say the rhyme pattern is like a pair of Couplets split up, and note that Tennyson chose to stick with a lyrical 8-syllable line length throughout. There is a grandeur to these lines, but I chose to show them first for how beautifully he weaves in the presence of both nature and the memory of the departed. But that does not always have to so blatant. Easier to follow are the four stanzas of No. 73:

So many worlds, so much to do,

So little done, such things to be,

How know I what had need of thee,

For thou wert strong as thou wert true?

 

The fame is quenched that I foresaw,

The head hath missed an earthly wreath:

I curse not nature, no, nor death;

For nothing is that errs from law.

 

We pass; the path that each man trod

Is dim, or will be dim, with weeds:

What frame is left for human deeds

In endless age? It rests with God.

 

O hollow wraith of drying fame,

Fade wholly, while the soul exults,

And self-infolds the large results

Of force that would have forged a name.

So here, I hope you noticed right away, Tennyson used the exact form and line pattern, but achieved something markedly different from No. 95. His anxiety almost beats with a heartbeat as we read his words, and 'nature' becomes thought of human nature and of how natural it is for two people to love one another.

The Prompt: write your own Elegy of at least 4 or 5 stanzas per poem. Imagine you are sitting by yourself in some personally significant natural spot. It could be in the woods, or on a mountaintop, or by a babbling brook – the place in nature where you feel connected to it. Then, imagining you are there, write at least one Elegy on the theme of 'Remember.' Keep the rhyme pattern a-b-b-a, use as many stanzas as you like, but maintain a consistent 8-syllable line. Play with it; your poem does not have to be about death or loss, just remembrance.

As final inspiration, here’s No. 86 from In Memoriam:

Sweet after showers, ambrosial air,

That rollest from the gorgeous gloom

Of evening over brake and bloom

And meadow, slowly breathing bare

 

The round of space, and rapt below

Through all the dewy-tasseled wood,

And shadowing down the horned flood

In ripples, fan my brows and blow

 

The fever from my cheek, and sigh

The full new life that feeds thy breath

Throughout my frame, till Doubt and Death,

Ill brethren, let the fancy fly

 

From belt to belt of crimson seas

On leagues of odor streaming far,

To where in yonder orient star

A hundred spirits whisper “Peace.”

Self-Review: Now that you have written an Elegy, I ask you to perform a self-check against the following set of questions. If you answer ‘Yes’ to one or more of them, and this leads to feelings of dissatisfaction with your results, turn to the appendix List of Random Prompt Ideas and choose one to try the Elegy challenge again. Check this list of questions with your second attempt and whittle those ‘Yes’s down to a comfortable level before going on to the Haiku prompt challenge.

Ask yourself DID I:

- Miss an opportunity to pull in natural references?

- Fail to make my Elegy personal or heartfelt?

- Fall short or go over on the syllable counts?

- Make hard stops at the end of each line?

- Treat the poem as a bunch of random lines and not a stanza?

- Fail to make my Elegy unified and flowing?

- Sacrifice basic grammar to achieve syllable count?

Remember, this course is designed to build knowledge and confidence step by step, so please feel comfortable with Elegy before you proceed.