Michael Drayton.
Odes.
[1606, and 1619.]
To the Reader.
Des I have called these, the first of my few Poems; which how happy soever they prove, yet Criticism itself cannot say, That the name is wrongfully usurped. For (not to begin with Definitions, against the Rule of Oratory; nor ab ovo, against the Prescript of Poetry in a poetical argument: but somewhat only to season thy palate with a slight description) an Ode is known to have been properly a Song moduled to the ancient harp: and neither too short-breathed, as hastening to the end; nor composed of [the] longest verses, as unfit for the sudden turns and lofty tricks with which Apollo used to menage it.
They are, as the Learned say, divers:
Some transcendently lofty; and far more high than the Epic, commonly called the Heroic, Poem—witness those of the inimitable Pindarus consecrated to the glory and renown of such as returned in triumph from [the Games at] Olympus, Elis, Isthmus, or the like.
Others, among the Greeks, are amorous, soft, and made for chambers; as others for theatres: as were Anacreon's, the very delicacies of the Grecian Erato; which Muse seemed to have been the Minion of that Teian old man, which composed them.
Of a mixed kind were Horace's. And [we] may truly therefore call these mixed; whatsoever else are mine: little partaking of the high dialect of the first
Though we be all to seek