Zero to Hero, a Guide - 10. Other Elegy Examples

.

Other Elegy Examples

The use of rhyming patterns like a-b-b-a comes from Italian Sonnets. There the pattern is extended, a-b-b-a-a-b-b-a, and the groups of matching sounds are called “kissing rhymes.”[1] In the 17th century, English-speaking poets first thought of using such a pattern with shorter line lengths, or 8-sylabble lines instead of the 10 or 12 normal for Sonnets. They also established four lines to be the perfect stanza size for this new Elegy form.

When In Memoriam came out, it was an instant bestseller – six reprintings being required in the first year alone. The intense interest in Tennyson’s Elegy style caused much research into earlier examples. In 1909, Indiana University professor Edward Payson Morton published a scholarly paper on this subject. His Poems in the Stanza of In Memoriam is meticulous, listing and citing examples sequentially from 1611 to the publication date of Tennyson’s book. It’s useful for me to be able to bring you further examples for inspiration.

Without further ado, here they some of them. We’ll start with excerpts from Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s 1847 aesthetic-style poem My Sister’s Sleep:

She fell asleep on Christmas Eve:

At length the long-ungranted shade

Of weary eyelids overweighed

The pain naught else might yet relieve.

I had been sitting up some nights,

And my tired mind felt weak and blank;

Like a sharp strengthening wine it drank

The stillness and the broken lights.

Twelve struck. That sound, by dwindling years

Heard in each hour, crept off; and then

The ruffled silence spread again,

Like water that a pebble stirs.

Our mother rose from where she sat:

Her needles, as she laid them down,

Met lightly, and her silken gown

Settled: no other noise than that.

"Glory unto the Newly Born!"

So, as said angels, she did say;

Because we were in Christmas Day,

Though it would still be long till morn.

Just then in the room over us

There was a pushing back of chairs,

As some who had sat unawares

So late, now heard the hour, and rose.

For my part, I but hid my face,

And held my breath, and spoke no word:

There was none spoken; but I heard

The silence for a little space.

Our mother bowed herself and wept:

And both my arms fell, and I said,

"God knows I knew that she was dead."

And there, all white, my sister slept.

The entire poem can be found here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45022/my-sisters-sleep

The Elegy may not always have to do with death, and in fact, one of its strengths still lies close to its origins as a nature poem. Here Frances Boscawen’s 1793 translation of Horace is rightly regarded as close in elegance to the original. Her ability to transmute internal feeling via the natural environment is enviable.

Ode V

What youth bedewed with moist perfume

Courts thee, Oh! Pyrrha, graceful maid!

With neat simplicity arrayed

In the sweet bower where roses bloom?

For whom dost thou in ringlets form

Thy golden locks? – Oft shall he wail

Thy truth, swift changing as the gale,

View the wild waves, and shudder at the storm.

Who now, all credulous, all gay,

Enjoys thy smile, on whose vain pride

Thy fickle favor shines untried,

As soft deceitful breezes play.

My fate the pictured wreck displays;

The dripping garments that remain

In mighty Neptune’s sacred fane,

Record my glad escape, my grateful praise.

In a similar vein, John Langhorne’s 1766 Ode to the Genius of Westmoreland seeks to praise and thank inspiration for visiting him.

Hail, hidden power of these wild groves,

These uncouth rocks, and mountains gray!

Where oft, as fades the closing day,

The family of Fancy roves.

In what lone cave, what sacred ceil,

Coeval with the birth of Time,

Wrapped in high cares, and thought sublime,

In awful silence dost thou dwell?

Oft in the depth of winter’s reign,

As blew the bleak winds o’er the dale;

Moaning along the distant gale,

Has Fancy heard thy voice complain.

Oft in the dark wood’s lonely way,

Swift has she seen thee glancing by;

Or down the summer evening sky,

Sporting in clouds of gilded day.

If caught from thee the sacred fire,

The glowed within my youthful breast;

Those thoughts too high to be expressed,

Genius, if thou didst once inspire,

O please accept this votive lay,

That, in my native shades retired,

And once, once more by thee inspired,

In gratitude I pray.

Metaphysical exploration is another area in which the Elegy excels. Note this excerpt from Herbert of Cherbury’s 1664 Ode upon a question moved whether love should continue forever.

 

When, with a sweet though troubled look,

She first broke silence, saying, “Dear friend,

Oh, that our love might take no end,

Or never had beginning took.”

“Oh no, beloved, I am most sure

These virtuous habits we acquire,

As being with the soul entire,

Must with it evermore endure.

Else should our souls in vain elect,

And vainer yet were Heaven’s laws,

When to an everlasting cause

They give a perishing effect.

Not here on earth then, nor above,

One good affection can impair;

For where God doth admit the fair,

Think you that He excludeth Love?

These eyes again thine eyes shall see,

These hands again thine hand enfold,

And all chaste blessings can be told

Shall with us everlasting be.

For if no use of sense remain

When bodies once this life forsake –

Or they could no delight partake –

Why should they ever rise again?

And if every imperfect mind

Make love the end of knowledge here,

How perfect will our love be where

All imperfection is refined.

So when from hence we shall be gone,

And be no more, not you, not I;

As one another’s mystery

Each shall be both, yet both but one.”

The entire poem can be found here: https://www.bartleby.com/337/427.html

But the example par excellence, showcasing all of the Elegy’s strengths to speak of love, loss, nature and abstract thoughts of the beyond, comes from Ben. Jonson’s 1616 poem “An Elegy.” In it, he seems to suggest that the young man he loves and is courting is so beautiful, he can singlehandedly bring back the ancient cult worship of Cupid. If so, then Ben. will be kneeling at the boy’s shrine, complaining how finer a lover the young man would make than the woman who so cruelly rejected Jonson.

Though beauty be the mark of praise,

And yours of whom I sing be such

As not the world can praise too much,

Yet ’tis your virtue now I raise.

A virtue, like allay, so gone

Throughout your form, as, though that move

And draw and conquer all men’s love,

This subjects you to love of one.

Wherein you triumph yet; because

’Tis of yourself, and that you use

The noblest freedom, not to choose

Against or faith or honor’s laws.

But who should less expect from you,

In whom alone Love lives again?

By whom he is restored to men,

And kept, and bred, and brought up true.

His falling temples you have reared,

The withered garlands ta’en away;

His altars kept from the decay

That envy wished, and nature feared;

And on them burn so chaste a flame,

With so much loyalties’ expense,

As Love, t’ acquit such excellence,

Is gone himself into your name.

And you are he; the deity

To whom all lovers are designed

That would their better objects find;

Among which faithful troop am I.

Who, as an offspring at your shrine,

Have sung this hymn, and here entreat

One spark of your diviner heat

To light upon a love of mine.

Which, if it kindle not, but scant

Appear, and that to shortest view,

Yet give me leave t’ adore in you

What I in her am grieved to want.

I hope you have found these examples inspiring, for the Elegy form is flexible. Master it, and the world of expression can open up to you.

Here is Morton’s paper if you are interested in reading the complete work: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2916382?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents