Is John Milton's poem "Lycidas" merely a personal lament for a dead friend or is it a poem of greater significance?

Edward King, the young fellow student at Cambridge
University whose untimely death is lamented in John Milton’s elegy “Lycidas,” was
apparently not a particularly close friend of the poet.  Even if he had been, however,
Milton’s poem would still probably have dealt with larger, broader themes than the death
of one person alone.  Milton was, from an early age, a “public” poet concerned with
major public issues – issues that transcended the significance of any single life.  In
that sense and many others, “Lycidas” is a typically Miltonic poem.  Among the major
issues Milton explores in “Lycidas” are the
following:

• Death. 
  “Lycidas” is not merely a poem about the death of Edward King but about death in
  general, especially premature
  death.


• Change. Death is
  merely one of numerous kinds of change (or “mutability”) the poem explores.  Mutability
  was a major concern of Renaissance writers in general, and Milton is no
  exception.


• The purpose(s) of
  life.  Milton meditates, in this poem, on the meaning(s) and purpose(s)
  of life.  He asks himself (and thereby invites readers to ask
  themselves) how and why life should be lived.  Is it worth working
  and sacrificing and planning seriously for the future when death can strike us down at
  any instant?  In particular, is it worth studying and devoting countless hours to
  cultivating one’s mind and one’s artistic skills when death can end our lives at any
  moment?  Or, as Milton himself puts it,

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Alas! What boots it with incessant
care

To tend the homely slighted shepherd’s
trade

And strictly meditate the thankless muse?
(64-66)

• The
  rewards of a virtuous life. If death can come at any moment, and if lofty
  human goals can thus be overthrown in an instant, why pursue lofty goals at all? To such
  questions, Milton offers a strong answer:  any worthy human
  effort

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. . . lives and spreads aloft by those pure
eyes,

And perfect witness of all-judging Jove [that is,
God];

As he pronounces lastly on each
deed,

Of so much fame in heaven expect thy meed [that is,
reward].
(81-84)

• The
  function of religion in a good society.  In its second half, Milton’s
  poem becomes even broader, less personal, in its emphasis on how Christians – especially
  Christian clerics – should live their lives.  He condemns corrupt priests who “Creep and
  intrude and climb into the fold” (115), saying that
  

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Of other care they little reckoning
make,

Than how to scramble at the shearers’
feast,

And shove away the worthy bidden guest.
(116-18)

In other words,
corrupt clerics pervert the entire purpose of Christianity, using it as a means of
worldly advancement for themselves rather than as a means of spiritual salvation for
themselves and others.

• The
  prospect of eternal life. Ultimately, “Lycidas” offers the promise of
  eternal life with God in heaven.  Milton’s concern is less with the death of Edward King
  in particular than with the hope of eternal salvation for all those to whom God will
  grant such grace.  King (Lycidas) may have drowned, but he will rise as surely as the
  sun rises in the sky.

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In these and various other ways, then, "Lycidas"
is a poem of broad signficance.