Jonson says that his one sin was to entertain too many hopes for his son’s future. This short poem movingly pays tribute to Jonson’s son, who we know from the poem was called Benjamin, or Ben, after his father, and who died young. A lament for a child who has died, and a classic example of the medieval dream-poem, Pearl is a long work but is well worth reading, whether in the original Middle English that summons up an age long past or in a modern translation, such as the recent one by Simon Armitage.īen Jonson, ‘On My First Sonne’. One of the first great elegies in the English language, Pearl was written by an anonymous poet in the late fourteenth century – probably the same poet who also gave us Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. What would you add to our list of the greatest elegiac poems in English? (Shelley’s Adonais, by the way, would have been number 11 on this list if we’d extended it beyond a top ten.)Īnonymous, Pearl. Here are ten of the best elegies from English poetry, from the Middle Ages to the 1980s. Death, and memorialising the dead, has long been a feature of poetry. The Oxford English Dictionary defines an elegy as ‘A song or poem of lamentation, esp. An elegy generally combines three stages of loss: first there is grief, then praise of the dead one, and finally consolation. An elegy tells the traffic story of an individual, or an individual’s loss, rather than the collective story of a people, which can be found in epic poetry. They will understand the importance of learning about nation and universe dignitaries, the great souls like Abraham Lincoln and Mahatma Gandhi will imbibe and inculcate national, democratic, patriotic, and sublime spirit among students.Īn elegy is a mournful poem, usually written in remembrance of a lost one for a funeral or as a lament. This poem is to enable students to know about the world's greatest personalities. The ship is anchor’d safe and sound, its voyage closed and done,įrom fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will, My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still, Rise up-for you the flag is flung-for you the bugle trills,įor you bouquets and ribbon’d wreaths-for you the shores a-crowding,įor you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring

The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting, The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won, O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done, “O Captain! My Captain!” is an elegy on the death of Pres. From 1867 the poem was included in the 1867 and subsequent editions of Leaves of Grass. My Captain!, three-stanza poem by Walt Whitman, first published in Sequel to Drum-Taps in 1865. Having continued to produce new editions of Leaves of Grass along with original works, Whitman died on Main Camden, New Jersey.Ībraham Lincoln is his Captain the poem was written in 1865 Poet and journalist Walt Whitman was born on in West Hills, New York.

O captin my captin collage