An example of elegy is the poem “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard” by Thomas Gray.
Instead of focusing on the death of a particular person, the poem reflects on the lives and deaths of ordinary people in general. The poet contemplates death and remembrance while standing in a rural graveyard. He wonders how different the lives of those buried individuals might have been if they had been born into privilege. However, he ultimately concludes that all humans face the same fate, regardless of wealth and power, and also reflects on his own mortality.