An Elegy to the Unknown Dead

An Elegy to the Unknown Dead

...lament, idealization, consolation as it is...

To you, the unknown dead, for no one knew your name
No sorrowful mourner came to claim your remains
How sad, how horrible that such a life be led
where no even cares if you are alive or dead.
I agonize but not enough, for my heart desires
a pain in my soul alight like funeral pyres.

In my imagination, I see the small child
with promise on his shoulder, on his face a smile.
Greatness was in the shadows waiting all the while.
Claim to fame was lingering for him to catch ahold.
Surly he'd have caught it ere his fingers turned cold
if a willing witness had firmly decreed,
"This child is a future man of integrity."

Consolation, solace does not enter my head.
Where is the resolution when the thing one dreads
has passed right before us without touching our lives?
An unknown's life has ended as on the streets he died.
If there's any justice for this soul no one claimed;
perhaps at heaven's gate, they'll remember his name.

Copyright  ©  January 17, 2009 by Karen M. Crump


The elegy began as an ancient Greek metrical form and is traditionally written in response to the death of a person or group. Though similar in function, the elegy is distinct from the epitaph, ode, and eulogy: the epitaph is very brief; the ode solely exalts; and the eulogy is most often written in formal prose.  The elements of a traditional elegy mirror three stages of loss. First, there is a lament, where the speaker expresses grief and sorrow, then praise and admiration of the idealized dead, and finally consolation and solace.

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