[39] On English ode-forms, see the introductions to Mr. Gosse's _English
Odes_ and Mr. William Sharp's _Great Odes_; also Schipper, vol. ii. p.
792.
[40] Mr. Patmore has used the same sort of verse for narrative poetry,
with unusual daring but also with unusual success. For an example see
his _Amelia_, included in the _Golden Treasury_, Second Series. The
following passage exhibits the metrical method of the poem at its best:
"And so we went alone By walls o'er which the lilac's numerous plume
Shook down perfume; Trim plots close blown With daisies, in conspicuous
myriads seen, Engross'd each one With single ardor for her spouse, the
sun; Garths in their glad array Of white and ruddy branch, auroral, gay,
With azure chill the maiden flower between; Meadows of fervid green,
With sometime sudden prospect of untold Cowslips, like chance-found
gold; And broadcast buttercups at joyful gaze, Rending the air with
praise, Like the six-hundred-thousand-voiced shout Of Jacob camp'd in
Midian put to rout; Then through the Park, Where Spring to livelier
gloom Quickened the cedars dark, And, 'gainst the clear sky cold, Which
shone afar Crowded with sunny alps oracular, Great chestnuts raised
themselves abroad like cliffs of bloom."
[41] The easy abuse of these irregular measures is amusingly parodied by
Mr. Owen Seaman, in a burlesque of an ode of Mr. Le Gallienne's:
"Is this the Seine? And am I altogether wrong About the brain, Dreaming
I hear the British tongue? Dear Heaven! what a rhyme! And yet 'tis all
as good As some that I have fashioned in my time, Like _bud_ and _wood_;
And on the other hand you couldn't have a more precise or neater Metre."
(_The Battle of the Bays_, p. 37.)