Definition of elegy. plural. elegies. 1 : a poem in elegiac couplets. 2a : a song or poem expressing sorrow or lamentation especially for one who is deadb : something (as a speech) resembling such a song or poem. 3a : a pensive or reflective poem that is usually nostalgic or melancholyb : a short pensive musical composition.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (February 27, 1807 â March 24, 1882) was an American poet and educator whose works include  Paul Revere's Ride , The Song of Hiawatha, and Evangeline. He was also the first American to translate Dante Alighieri 's The Divine Comedy, and was one of the five Fireside Poets.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834), English lyrical poet, critic, and philosopher, whose Lyrical Ballads,(1798) written with William Wordsworth, started the English Romantic movement. Samuel Taylor Coleridge was born in Ottery St Mary, Devonshire, as the youngest son of the vicar of Ottery St Mary. After his father's death Coleridge was sent away to Christ's Hospital School in London. He also studied at Jesus College. In Cambridge Coleridge met the radical, future poet laureate Robert Southey.