In Romantic poetry, the “bronze string” as polemical register is not the only instrument to give itself political resonance. Elegy also proves itself to be a register suitable for socio-political commitment. Those authors responsible for the creation of a wide social Romanticism throughout the century, from Louis Belmont and Joseph Déjacque, through amongst others Marceline Desbordes-Valmore and Victor Hugo, participate in the renovation of the elegiac register by having it serve the denunciation of injustice and the exhortation to progress. The paper focuses on a formal study to bring to light two tendencies : the poem that deplores creates an elegiac community. In that sense it is already political. Furthermore, the elegy can gain illocutory force by shuffling its traditional temporality: amongst political Romantics, it represents a tension, a drive, from a present steeped in mourning to glorious tomorrows.