Meanings of little elegy in English

Two hundred years before Jonson had written a little elegy beginning-

And then, just so there could be some element of truth in this little elegy, I scribbled:

The following little elegy, heard and written down in Galicia, we have always considered as one of the gems of poetry.

Strange, dream-like, at times improbable, nevertheless this graceful little elegy of private loss is as beautiful as any Makine has yet written.