Pastoral elegy condition of death, not just the death of a single individual. John Milton’s "Lycidas," considered the most famous pastoral elegy, mourns the death of the poet’s good friend Edward King. In the 17th century, John Donne, a contemporary of Milton’s, explored the genre further and addressed matters of human love, which to his metaphysically inclined mind often resembled death. In the English language some of the greatest pastoral elegies are "Adonaïs" by Percy Bysshe Shelley, which mourns the death of poet John Keats, and "Thyrsis" by Matthew Arnold, which mourns the poet Arthur Hugh Clough. In 17th century England, Andrew
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