_Odes._
[1606, and 1619.]
The following twelve _Odes_ made their first appearance in an undated
Volume of _Poems Lyrical and Pastoral_: but its date is fixed, as
being in 1606, mainly by the 11th _Ode_ on _The Virginian Voyage_.
As will be seen from pages 358-359 of the Second Volume of this
Series; JAMES I., on 10th April 1606, divided Virginia into two
Colonies. The Southern (34° to 41° N.), or First, Colony, he granted
to the London Company: and the Northern (38° to 45° N.), or Second,
Colony, to the Plymouth Company.
This 11th Ode must therefore have been written somewhat before 12th
August 1606; as, on that day, the Plymouth Company sent off, for
North Virginia, Captain HENRY CHALLON's ship: which was however taken
by the Spanish Plate Fleet, and its crew brought prisoners into Spain.
Of these twelve _Odes_; Nos. 4 and 8 were not reprinted in the Second
Edition of 1619. The text of the other ten is largely that of that
later edition, which was carefully revised by DRAYTON; who, amongst
other changes, added in it those Headings which are here inserted
between square brackets.
_To the Reader._
ODES I have called these, the first of my few Poems; which how happy
soever they prove, yet Criticism itself cannot say, That the name is
wrongfully usurped. For (not to begin with Definitions, against the
Rule of Oratory; nor _ab ovo_, against the Prescript of Poetry in a
poetical argument: but somewhat only to season thy palate with a slight
description) an Ode is known to have been properly a Song moduled to
the ancient harp: and neither too short-breathed, as hastening to the
end; nor composed of [the] longest verses, as unfit for the sudden
turns and lofty tricks with which APOLLO used to manage it.
They are, as the Learned say, divers:
Some transcendently lofty; and far more high than the Epic, commonly
called the Heroic, Poem--witness those of the inimitable PINDARUS
consecrated to the glory and renown of such as returned in triumph from
[the Games at] Olympus, Elis, Isthmus, or the like.
Others, among the Greeks, are amorous, soft, and made for chambers; as
others for theatres: as were ANACREON's, the very delicacies of the
Grecian ERATO; which Muse seemed to have been the Minion of that Teian
old man, which composed them.
Of a mixed kind were HORACE's. And [we] may truly therefore call these
mixed; whatsoever else are mine: little partaking of the high dialect
of the first