Viewed from the purely metrical standpoint, English odes are commonly either (a) regular Pindaric odes, imitative of the structure of the Greek ode, or (b) irregular, so-called "Pindaric" or "Cowleyan" odes. A third group may be made of forms based on the imitation of the choral odes of the Greek drama. There is also a class of odes called "Horatian," made up of simple lyrical stanzas; the name "ode" is applied here only because of the content of the poem or because of resemblance to the so-called odes (properly carmina or songs) of Horace, and since these Horatian odes show no metrical peculiarities they will not be represented here.[39]
The characteristic effect of the ode is produced by the varying lengths of lines employed, and the varying distances at which the rimes answer one another. This variety, in the hands of a master of verse, is capable of splendid effectiveness, but it gives dangerous license to the unskilled writer.
A.—REGULAR PINDARIC
III.1 The Strophe, or Turn
It is not growing like a tree
In bulk, doth make men better be;
Or standing long an oak, three hundred year,
To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sear:
A lily of a day
Is fairer far, in May,
Although it fall and die that night;
It was the plant of flower and light.
In small proportions we just beauties see;
And in short measures life may perfect be.
III.2 The Antistrophe, or Counter-turn
Call, noble Lucius, then for wine,
And let thy looks with gladness shine;
Accept this garland, plant it on thy head,
And think, nay know, thy Morison's not dead.
He leap'd the present age,
Possess'd with holy rage,
To see that bright eternal day;
Of which we priests and poets say
Such truths as we expect for happy men:
And there he lives with memory, and Ben.
III.3 The Epode, or Stand
Jonson, who sung this of him, ere he went,
Himself, to rest,
Or taste a part of that full joy he meant
To have express'd,
In this bright asterism!—
Where it were friendship's schism,
Were not his Lucius long with us to tarry,
To separate these twi-
Lights, the Dioscuri;
And keep the one half from his Harry.
But fate doth so alternate the design,
Whilst that in heaven, this light on earth must shine.
(Ben Jonson: A Pindaric Ode on the death of Sir H. Morison. 1629.)