“The crimson pall of eve.”
“The woof of my tent’s thin roof.”
“My wind-built tent.”
“The million-colored bow.”
“Nurseling of the sky.”
“With never a stain
The pavilion of heaven is bare.”
Read aloud the entire lyric till its sweet music is yours. Note the smooth rhythm, the peculiar adaptation of sound to sense, the flowing cadences in the lines.
Ode to a Skylark
(Volume VII, page 275)
There are three classes of lyrics that are to a greater or less degree in the nature of an address to some person, place or thing. The elegy is a lyric address praising the dead, the ode and the sonnet may praise living or dead. The elegy in its measures partakes of the solemnity of the grave, the ode is hampered by no such restrictions. Neither is the sonnet, although by its strict requirements of form it is set off in a class by itself. In the ode the poet enjoys his greatest freedom, for he may use any meter, may write at any length and in any manner, grave, gay or grotesque. Accordingly the odes of our language are most spontaneous, musical, inspiring and beautiful.