The elegiac heroic poetic form is similar to heroic couplets and triplets, consisting of lines of iambic pentameter.

The difference is that elegiac heroic lines are arranged in stanzas, and the rhymes alternate; for example the rhyme scheme of a six-verse elegiac heroic stanza is ababab.¹

Examples of Elegiac Heroics

Thomas Gray

The Curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
The lowing herd wind slowly o’er the lea,
The plowman homeward plods his weary way,
And leaves the world to darkness and to me.

Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight,
And all the air a solemn stillness holds,
Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight,
And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds;
- Elegy written in a Country Churchyard, lines 1 – 8

In this example, note the abab rhyme scheme of each stanza, and the iambic pentameter lines, such as:

The CUR | few TOLLS | the KNELL | of PAR | ting DAY,

References