ODE TO SIMPLICITY.
The measure of the ancient ballad seems to have been made choice of for this ode, on account of the subject; and it has, indeed, an air of simplicity, not altogether unaffecting:
| “By all the honey’d store On Hybla’s thymy shore, By all her blooms, and mingled murmurs dear, By her whose lovelorn woe, In evening musings slow, Sooth’d sweetly sad Electra’s poet’s ear.” |
This allegorical imagery of the honeyed store, the blooms, and mingled murmurs of Hybla, alluding to the sweetness and beauty of the Attic poetry, has the finest and the happiest effect: yet, possibly, it will bear a question, whether the ancient Greek tragedians had a general claim to simplicity in any thing more than the plans of their drama. Their language, at least, was infinitely metaphorical; yet it must be owned that they justly copied nature and the passions, and so far, certainly, they were entitled to the palm of true simplicity; the following most beautiful speech 130 of Polynices will be a monument of this, so long as poetry shall last:
| ––––––πολυδακρυς δ’ αφικομην Χρονιος ιδων μελαθρα, και βωμους θεων, Γυμνασια θ’ οισιν ενετραφην, Διρκης, θ’ ὑδωρ, Hων ου δικαιως απελαθεις, ξενην πολιν Ναιω, δι’ οσσων ναμ εχων δακρυρῥοουν. Αλλ’ εκ γαρ αλγους αλγος αυ, σε δερκομαι Καρα ξυρηκες, και πεπλους μελαγχιμους Εχουσαν. Eurip. Phœniss. ver. 369. |
| 22 “But staid to sing alone 33 To one distinguish’d throne.” |
The poet cuts off the prevalence of simplicity among the Romans with the reign of Augustus; and, indeed, it did not continue much longer, most of the compositions, after that date, giving into false and artificial ornament.
| “No more, in hall or bower, The passions own thy power, Love, only love, her forceless numbers mean.” |
In these lines the writings of the Provençal poets are principally alluded to, in which simplicity is generally sacrificed to the rhapsodies of romantic love.