High in the starry orb is hung,
And next Alcides' guardian arm,
That harp to which thy Orpheus sung,
Who woods and rocks and winds could charm;
That harp which on Cyllene's shady hill,
When first the vocal shell was found,
With more than mortal skill
Inventor Hermes taught to sound:
Hermes on bright Latona's son,
By sweet persuasion won,
The wondrous work bestow'd;
Latona's son, to thine
Indulgent, gave the gift divine:
A god the gift, a god th' invention show'd.
(CONGREVE: _A Pindaric Ode on the victorious progress of her Majesty's
Arms_. 1706.)
To Congreve is due the credit for the revival of the regular ode in the
eighteenth century, after it had been long forgotten by English poets.
Meantime the irregular form, devised by Cowley, had become popular; and
against the license of this Congreve protested in his _Discourse on the
Pindaric Ode_, prefixed to his Ode of 1706. (See Mr. Gosse's
Introduction to _English Odes_, p. xvii., and his _Life of Congreve_, p.
158.)
Congreve said in his Discourse: "The following ode is an attempt
towards restoring the regularity of the ancient lyric poetry, which
seems to be altogether forgotten, or unknown, by our English
writers. There is nothing more frequent among us than a sort of
poems entitled Pindaric Odes, pretending to be written in imitation
of the manner and style of Pindar, and yet I do not know that there
is to this day extant, in our language, one ode contrived after his
model.... The character of these late Pindarics is a bundle of
rambling incoherent thoughts, expressed in a like parcel of
irregular stanzas, which also consist of such another complication
of disproportioned, uncertain, and perplexed verses and rhymes....
On the contrary, there is nothing more regular than the odes of
Pindar, both as to the exact observation of the measures and
numbers of his stanzas and verses, and the perpetual coherence of
his thoughts....
"Though there be no necessity that our triumphal odes should
consist of the three afore-mentioned stanzas, yet if the reader can
observe that the great variation of the numbers in the third stanza
(call it epode, or what you please) has a pleasing effect in the
ode, and makes him return to the first and second stanzas with more
appetite than he could do if always cloyed with the same quantities
and measures, I cannot see why some use may not be made of Pindar's
example, to the great improvement of the English ode. There is
certainly a pleasure in beholding anything that has art and
difficulty in the contrivance, especially if it appears so
carefully executed that the difficulty does not show itself till it
is sought for....
"Having mentioned Mr. Cowley, it may very well be expected that
something should be said of him, at a time when the imitation of
Pindar is the theme of our discourse. But there is that great
deference due to the memory, great parts, and learning, of that
gentleman, that I think nothing should be objected to the latitude
he has taken in his Pindaric odes. The beauty of his verses is an
atonement for the irregularity of his stanzas.... Yet I must beg
leave to add that I believe those irregular odes of Mr. Cowley may
have been the principal, though innocent, occasion of so many
deformed poems since, which, instead of being true pictures of
Pindar, have (to use the Italian painters' term) been only
caricatures of him."
(_Discourse on the Pindaric Ode_, in Chalmers's _English Poets_, vol. x.
p. 300.)
Who shall awake the Spartan fife,
And call in solemn sounds to life
The youths whose locks divinely spreading,
Like vernal hyacinths in sullen hue,
At once the breath of fear and virtue shedding,
Applauding Freedom lov'd of old to view?
What new Alcæus, fancy-blest,
Shall sing the sword, in myrtles drest,
At Wisdom's shrine awhile its flame concealing
(What place so fit to seal a deed renowned?),
Till she her brightest lightnings round revealing,
It leap'd in glory forth, and dealt her prompted wound?
O goddess, in that feeling hour,
When most its sounds would court thy ears,
Let not my shell's misguided power
E'er draw thy sad, thy mindful tears.
No, Freedom, no, I will not tell
How Rome before thy weeping face,
With heaviest sound, a giant statue, fell,
Push'd by a wild and artless race
From off its wide ambitious base,
When Time his Northern sons of spoil awoke,
And all the blended work of strength and grace,
With many a rude repeated stroke,
And many a barb'rous yell, to thousand fragments broke....
Beyond the measure vast of thought,
The works the wizard Time has wrought!
The Gaul, 'tis held of antique story,
Saw Britain link'd to his now adverse strand;
No sea between, nor cliff sublime and hoary,
He pass'd with unwet feet thro' all our land.
To the blown Baltic then, they say,
The wild waves found another way,
Where Orcas howls, his wolfish mountains rounding;
Till all the banded West at once 'gan rise,
A wide wild storm ev'n Nature's self confounding,
With'ring her giant sons with strange uncouth surprise.
This pillar'd earth so firm and wide,
By winds and inward labors torn,
In thunders dread was push'd aside,
And down the should'ring billows borne.
And see, like gems, her laughing train,
The little isles on every side!
Mona, once hid from those who search the main,
Where thousand elfin shapes abide,
And Wight, who checks the west'ring tide;
For thee consenting Heaven has each bestowed,
A fair attendant on her sovereign pride.
To thee this blest divorce she ow'd,
For thou hast made her vales thy lov'd, thy last abode!
(COLLINS: _Ode to Liberty_, strophe and antistrophe. 1746.)
This ode consists of strophe, epode, antistrophe, and second epode. The
antistrophe corresponds metrically to the strophe, as usual; the epodes
are in four-stress couplets. It was Collins's habit to place the epode
between the strophe and antistrophe, perhaps, as Professor Bronson
suggests, in order that it may produce "an impression of its own
analogous to that of the Greek epode, namely, an impression of relief
and repose." Mr. Bronson says further of Collins's odes: "Collins was
less scholarly than Gray, but he was bolder and more original; and
consciously or unconsciously he so constructed his odes that their
organic parts stand out clearly distinct and produce effects analogous
to those produced by the Greek ode. In brief, his method was, first, to
make large divisions of the thought correspond to the large divisions of
the form; and, second, to throw out into relief the complex strophe and
antistrophe by contrasting them with a simple epode. The reader may not
perceive the minute correspondences in form between strophe and
antistrophe, but he can hardly fail to feel that the two answer to one
another in a general way." (Athenæum Press edition of Collins,
Introduction, p. lxxv.)