Expressing poetic sorrow for something past

• Expressing sorrow
• Like Berg's "Violin Concerto"
• Wistfully mournful
• Sad English stage actor denied rise to tour India
• Like a Thomas Gray work

The Collaborative International Dictionary Word definitions in The Collaborative International Dictionary
Elegiac \E*le"gi*ac\, n. Elegiac verse.

Wiktionary Word definitions in Wiktionary
a. 1 Of, or relating to an elegy. 2 Expressing sorrow or mourning. n. A poem composed in the couplet style of classical elegy: a line of dactylic hexameter followed by a line of dactylic pentameter

WordNet Word definitions in WordNet
adj. resembling or characteristic of or appropriate to an elegy; "an elegiac poem on a friend's death" expressing sorrow often for something past; "an elegiac lament for youthful ideals"