Dirge
Brief hymn or song
Full of grief and lamentation
To be sung at a funeral
Shorter than an elegy
Lament
Any poem expressing deep grief
Usually written after the death of a
loved one
Can be lamenting a loss other than
death
Related to ELEGY & DIRGE
“Lament” by Edna St. Vincent Millay
Listen, children:
Your father is dead.
From his old coats
I'll make you little jackets;
I'll make you little trousers
From his old pants.
There'll be in his pockets
Things he used to put there,
Keys and pennies
Covered with tobacco;
Dan shall have the pennies
To save in his bank;
Anne shall have the keys
To make a pretty noise with.
Life must go on,
And the dead be forgotten;
Life must go on,
Though good men die;
Anne, eat your breakfast;
Dan, take your medicine;
Life must go on;
I forget just why.
Sorrow is my own yard
“The Widow’s Lament in
where the new grass
Springtime” by William Carlos
flames as it has flamed
Williams
often before, but not
but the grief in my heart
with the cold fire
is stronger than they,
that closes round me this year. for though they were my joy
Thirty-five years
formerly, today I notice them
and turn away forgetting.
I lived with my husband.
Today my son told me
The plum tree is white today
that in the meadows,
with masses of flowers.
at the edge of the heavy woods
Masses of flowers
in the distance, he saw
load the cherry branches
trees of white flowers.
and color some bushes
I feel that I would like
to go there
yellow and some red,
and fall into those flowers
and sink into the marsh near them.
Elegy
An occasional poem when read at a
funeral or memorial
Laments & grieves the death of the
poem’s subject
Sometimes written in meter with a
rhyme scheme
Different than EULOGY – a eulogy is a
speech for a funeral or memorial
Panegyric
Poem of praise & tribute
Related to eulogy & ode
Highly praises the subject of the poem
Ben Johnson wrote a panegyric praising
William Shakespeare. Anne Bradstreet
wrote one praising Queen Elizabeth.
Epitaph
Short poem
Meant as an inscription on a
tombstone
“Bread and Music” by Conrad Aiken
Music I heard with you was more than music,
And bread I broke with you was more than bread;
Now that I am without you, all is desolate;
All that was once so beautiful is dead.
Your hands once touched this table and this silver,
And I have seen your fingers hold this glass.
These things do not remember you, belovèd,
And yet your touch upon them will not pass.
For it was in my heart you moved among them,
And blessed them with your hands and with your eyes;
And in my heart they will remember always,—
They knew you once, O beautiful and wise.
“Do not stand at my grave and weep” by Mary Elizabeth Frye
Do not stand at my grave and weep:
I am not there; I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow,
I am the diamond glints on snow,
I am the sun on ripened grain,
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning’s hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circling flight.
I am the soft starshine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry:
I am not there; I did not die.