A monody is a poem in which one person laments another's death, as in Tennyson's Break, Break, Break, or Wordsworth's She Dwelt Among the Untrodden Ways. (Also see Dirge, Elegy, Epitaph)

Example:

The Sea's Handmaiden

She often walked along the shore
In windy weather or in fair,
But now my love shall stroll no more,
Nor will the breeze play with her hair.

I did not even know her name
When she came to me that summer day.
A wild thing that I could never tame,
But all the same, I thought she'd stay.

I've lost her, my love, to the sea
Her footsteps fading in the sand.
If only the waves would return her to me,
So we might stroll hand in hand.

Copyright © 2001 Dendrobia