elegy

In classical times, any poem in elegiac metre (a couplet consisting of one hexameter and one pentameter), such as those written (in Greek) by Archilochus (7th-c BC), and (in Latin) by Propertius. In modern literatures, it is a poem of mourning or lament, such as Milton's Lycidas (1637) or Shelley's Adonais (1821), often incorporating serious general reflections on life, as in Gray's Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard (1751) or Whitman's ‘When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd’ (1861).

Some notable elegies include:

The Elegies of Propertius Thomas Gray's Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard Edmund Spenser's Astrophel 'Collection of Elegies' John Milton's Lycidas Percy Bysshe Shelley's Adonaïs Evgeny Baratynsky's Autumn William Cullen Bryant's Thanatopsis Jan Kochanowski's Treny Walt Whitman's When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomed Alfred Tennyson's In Memoriam Chidiock Tichborne's Elegy The Old English poems The Wanderer, Beowulf and The Seafarer Charlotte Turner Smith's Elegiac Poems Rainer Maria Rilke's Duino Elegies

Musical elegies:

Élégie, Gabriel Fauré Goodbye Pork Pie Hat, Charles Mingus An American Elegy, Frank Ticheli Elegy, Jethro Tull Elegy, Leaves' Eyes