Pastoral elegy Shelley's "Adonaïs" is a pastoral elegy written by Shelley immediately after hearing about the death of John Keats. The elegy is 495 lines long, consisting of a total of 55 Spenserian stanzas. "Adonaïs" was composed during the spring of 1821 and was eventually published in July 1821. Studying the works of many classical pastoral elegies himself, Shelley admired Milton's poetic voice and form in "Lycidas". Thus, Shelley composed "Adonaïs" specifically in the tradition of Milton's "Lycidas" Introduced to each other by their mutual friend Leigh Hunt in late 1816, Shelley and Keats often exchanged letters of advice about their works
Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard “The Magdalens: an elegy” (1763); “The Nun: an elegy” (1764); and “An Elegy Written Among the Ruins of an Abbey” (1765), which is derivative of the earlier poems on ruins by Moore and Cunningham. At the opposite extreme, Gray's poem provided a format for a surprising number that purport to be personal descriptions of life in gaol, starting with “An elegy in imitation of Gray, written in the King's Bench Prison by a minor “ (London 1790), which is close in title to William Thomas Moncrieff’s later "Prison Thoughts: An elegy, written in the King's Bench Prison", dating from 1816