Elegy: A poem of lament, usually formal and sustained, over the death of a particular person; also, a meditative poem in plaintive or sorrowful mood, such as, Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, by Thomas Gray. NOTE: The pastoral elegy became conventional in the Renaissance and continued into the nineteenth century. Traditionally, pastoral elegies included an invocation, a lament in which all nature joined, praise, sympathy, and a closing consolation, as in John Milton's Lycidas. (See also dirge, epitaph, monody)