English Verse Part 44

Hold thy Pindaric Pegasus closely in, Which does to rage begin, And this steep hill would gallop up with violent course; 'Tis an unruly and a hard-mouth'd horse, Fierce, and unbroken yet, Impatient of the spur or bit; Now prances stately, and anon flies o'er the place; Disdains the servile law of any settled pace; Conscious and proud of his own natural force, 'Twill no unskilful touch endure, But flings writer and reader too that sits not sure.

(COWLEY: _The Resurrection_, strophes iii. and iv. 1656).

Cowley, as has already appeared, introduced the irregular ode into English poetry, calling it "Pindaric" under a misapprehension of the real structure of the Greek odes. He published fifteen "Pindarique Odes"

in 1656 (see the Preface to these, in Grosart's edition of his works, vol. ii. p. 4). The present specimen ill.u.s.trates the really not unskilful use which Cowley made of the varying cadences of the form, and also sets forth--in the amusing concluding lines--his own idea of its difficulties.

Under the influence of Cowley's odes, the new form speedily became popular. According to Dr. Johnson, "this lax and lawless versification so much concealed the deficiencies of the barren, and flattered the laziness of the idle, that it immediately over-spread our books of poetry; all the boys and girls caught the pleasing fashion, and they who could do nothing else could write like Pindar." (_Life of Cowley_.) Compare also the remarks of Mr. Gosse: "Until the days of Collins and Gray, the ode modelled upon Cowley was not only the universal medium for congratulatory lyrics and pompous occasional pieces, but it was almost the only variety permitted to the melancholy generations over whom the heroic couplet reigned supreme." (_Seventeenth Century Studies_, p.

216.)

It has been the habit of modern critics to treat the irregularities of the Cowleyan ode with no little contempt, and it is undoubtedly true that in the hands of small poets its liberties are dangerous; but it is also true that some of the greatest modern poets have adopted the form for some of their best work, and that they have generally preferred it to that of the regular Pindaric ode.

When in mid-air the golden trump shall sound, To raise the nations under ground; When in the valley of Jehoshaphat The judging G.o.d shall close the book of Fate, And there the last a.s.sizes keep For those who wake and those who sleep; When rattling bones together fly From the four corners of the sky; When sinews o'er the skeletons are spread, Those cloth'd with flesh, and life inspires the dead; The sacred poets first shall hear the sound, And foremost from the tomb shall bound, For they are covered with the lightest ground; And straight, with inborn vigor, on the wing, Like mounting larks, to the new morning sing.

There thou, sweet saint, before the choir shalt go, As harbinger of heaven, the way to show, The way which thou so well hast learn'd below.

(DRYDEN: _To the Pious Memory of Mistress Anne Killigrew_, strophe x.

1686.)

See also specimen from the _Ode for St. Cecilia's Day_, quoted above, p.

52.

Dryden's odes for St. Cecilia's Day (especially the _Alexander's Feast_) are among the most highly esteemed of his poems; but parts, at least, of the ode on Mistress Killigrew are no less fine, and in this case we have a purely literary ode, whose irregularities are not designed--as in the case of the others--to fit choral rendering. The conclusion of the ode, here quoted, seems to owe something of both substance and form to the conclusion of Cowley's Resurrection Ode (see preceding specimen). Dr.

Johnson called Dryden's Killigrew Ode "undoubtedly the n.o.blest ode that our language ever has produced."

Last came Joy's ecstatic trial.

He, with viny crown advancing, First to the lively pipe his hand addrest; But soon he saw the brisk awak'ning viol, Whose sweet entrancing voice he loved the best.

They would have thought, who heard the strain, They saw in Tempe's vale her native maids, Amidst the festal sounding shades, To some unwearied minstrel dancing, While, as his flying fingers kiss'd the strings, Love fram'd with Mirth a gay fantastic round; Loose were her tresses seen, her zone unbound, And he, amidst his frolic play, As if he would the charming air repay, Shook thousand odors from his dewy wings.

(COLLINS: _The Pa.s.sions._ 1746.)

I marked Ambition in his war-array!

I heard the mailed Monarch's troublous cry-- "Ah! wherefore does the Northern Conqueress stay!

Groans not her chariot on its onward way?"

Fly, mailed Monarch, fly!

Stunned by Death's twice mortal mace, No more on murder's lurid face The insatiate hag shall gloat with drunken eye!

Manes of the unnumbered slain!

Ye that gasped on Warsaw's plain!

Ye that erst at Ismail's tower, When human ruin choked the streams, Fell in conquest's glutted hour, Mid women's shrieks and infants' screams!

Spirits of the uncoffined slain, Sudden blasts of triumph swelling, Oft, at night, in misty train, Rush around her narrow dwelling!

The exterminating fiend is fled-- (Foul her life, and dark her doom)-- Mighty armies of the dead Dance, like death-fires, round her tomb!

Then with prophetic song relate Each some tyrant-murderer's fate!

(COLERIDGE: _Ode on the Departing Year_, strophe iii. 1796.)

This ode was evidently intended to be in the regular Pindaric form, and was divided into strophes, antistrophes, and epodes; but it soon broke into irregularity. On Coleridge's odes see some remarks by Mr. Theodore Watts in the article on Poetry in the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_.

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting: The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star, Hath had elsewhere its setting, And cometh from afar: Not in entire forgetfulness, And not in utter nakedness, But trailing clouds of glory do we come From G.o.d, who is our home.

Heaven lies about us in our infancy!

Shades of the prison-house begin to close Upon the growing boy, But he beholds the light, and whence it flows, He sees it in his joy; The youth, who daily farther from the east Must travel, still is Nature's priest, And by the vision splendid Is on his way attended; At length the man perceives it die away, And fade into the light of common day....

O joy! that in our embers Is something that doth live, That nature yet remembers What was so fugitive!

The thought of our past years in me doth breed Perpetual benediction: not indeed For that which is most worthy to be blest; Delight and liberty, the simple creed Of childhood, whether busy or at rest, With new-fledged hope still fluttering in his breast:-- Not for these I raise The song of thanks and praise; But for those obstinate questionings Of sense and outward things, Fallings from us, vanishings; Blank misgivings of a creature Moving about in worlds not realized, High instincts before which our mortal nature Did tremble like a guilty thing surprised: But for those first affections, Those shadowy recollections, Which, be they what they may, Are yet the fountain light of all our day, Are yet a master light of all our seeing; Uphold us, cherish, and have power to make Our noisy years seem moments in the being Of the eternal Silence: truths that wake To perish never; Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavor, Nor man nor boy, Nor all that is at enmity with joy, Can utterly abolish or destroy!

Hence in a season of calm weather, Though inland far we be, Our souls have sight of that immortal sea Which brought us. .h.i.ther, Can in a moment travel thither, And see the children sport upon the sh.o.r.e, And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore.

(WORDSWORTH: _Intimations of Immortality_, strophes v. and ix. 1807.)

In this poem the English ode may be said to have reached its high-water mark. Professor Corson observes: "The several metres are felt, in the course of the reading of the Ode, to be organic--inseparable from what each is employed to express. The rhymes, too, with their varying degrees of emphasis, according to the nearness or remoteness, and the length, of the rhyming verses, are equally a part of the expression....

The feelings of the reader of English poetry get to be set, so to speak, to the pentameter measure, as in that measure the largest portion of English poetry is written; and, accordingly, other measures derive some effect from that fact. In the theme-metre, generally, the more reflective portions of the Ode, its deeper tones, are expressed. The gladder notes come in the shorter metres.... Wordsworth never wrote any poem of which it can be more truly said than of his great Ode, 'Of the soul the body form doth take.'" (_Primer of English Verse_, pp. 32-34.)

Then gentle winds arose With many a mingled close Of wild aeolian sound and mountain-odor keen; And where the Baian ocean Welters with airlike motion, Within, above, around its bowers of starry green, Moving the sea-flowers in those purple caves Even as the ever stormless atmosphere Floats o'er the Elysian realm, It bore me like an Angel, o'er the waves Of sunlight, whose swift pinnace of dewy air No storm can overwhelm; I sailed, where ever flows Under the calm Serene A spirit of deep emotion From the unknown graves Of the dead kings of Melody.

Shadowy Aornos darkened o'er the helm The horizontal ether; heaven stripped bare Its depths over Elysium, where the prow Made the invisible water white as snow; From that Typhaean mount, Inarime, There streamed a sunlight vapor, like the standard Of some ethereal host; Whilst from the coast, Louder and louder, gathering round, there wandered Over the oracular woods and divine sea Prophesyings which grew articulate-- They seize me--I must speak them--be they fate!

(Sh.e.l.lEY: _Ode to Naples_, strophe ii. 1819.)

Bury the Great Duke With an empire's lamentation, Let us bury the Great Duke To the noise of the mourning of a mighty nation, Mourning when their leaders fall, Warriors carry the warrior's pall, And sorrow darkens hamlet and hall.

Where shall we lay the man whom we deplore?

Here, in streaming London's central roar.

Let the sound of those he wrought for, And the feet of those he fought for, Echo round his bones for evermore.

Lead out the pageant: sad and slow, As fits an universal woe, Let the long long procession go, And let the sorrowing crowd about it grow, And let the mournful martial music blow; The last great Englishman is low....

... We revere, and while we hear The tides of Music's golden sea Setting toward eternity, Uplifted high in heart and hope are we, Until we doubt not that for one so true There must be other n.o.bler work to do Than when he fought at Waterloo, And Victor he must ever be.

For though the Giant Ages heave the hill And break the sh.o.r.e, and evermore Make and break, and work their will; Though world on world in myriad myriads roll Round us, each with different powers, And other forms of life than ours, What know we greater than the soul?

On G.o.d and G.o.dlike men we build our trust.

Hush, the Dead March wails in the people's ears: The dark crowd moves, and there are sobs and tears: The black earth yawns: the mortal disappears; Ashes to ashes, dust to dust; He is gone who seemed so great.-- Gone; but nothing can bereave him Of the force he made his own Being here, and we believe him Something far advanced in state, And that he wears a truer crown Than any wreath that man can weave him.

Speak no more of his renown, Lay your earthly fancies down, And in the vast cathedral leave him.

G.o.d accept him, Christ receive him.

(TENNYSON: _On the Death of the Duke of Wellington_, strophes i, ii, iii, ix (in part). 1852.)

This ode of Tennyson's is one of the few poems in which he gave himself such liberty of form (compare some of the irregular measures of _Maud_).

It shows his usual skill in the adaptation of metrical effects to the purposes of description. Dr. Henry Van d.y.k.e has suggested that the varying--almost lawless--movements of the opening lines are designed to suggest the surging of the crowd through the streets of London, before the entrance into the cathedral for the funeral.

Bow down, dear Land, for thou hast found release!

Thy G.o.d, in these distempered days, Hath taught thee the sure wisdom of His ways, And through thine enemies hath wrought thy peace!

Bow down in prayer and praise!

No poorest in thy borders but may now Lift to the juster skies a man's enfranchised brow.

O Beautiful! my Country! ours once more, Smoothing thy gold of war-dishevelled hair O'er such sweet brows as never other wore, And letting thy set lips, Freed from wrath's pale eclipse, The rosy edges of their smile lay bare, What words divine of lover or of poet Could tell our love and make thee know it, Among the Nations bright beyond compare?

What were our lives without thee?

What all our lives to save thee?

We reck not what we gave thee; We will not dare to doubt thee.

But ask whatever else, and we will dare!

(LOWELL: _Harvard Commemoration Ode_, strophe xii. 1865.)

This is undoubtedly the finest of odes by American poets, and remains one of the glories of new-world poetry. Its irregular measures were designed by Mr. Lowell to fit the poem for public reading (see his letter to Mr. Gosse on the subject, quoted in the Appendix to Gosse's _Seventeenth Century Studies_).

In the Year of the great Crime, When the false English n.o.bles and their Jew, By G.o.d demented, slew The Trust they stood thrice pledged to keep from wrong, One said, Take up thy Song, That breathes the mild and almost mythic time Of England's prime!

But I, Ah, me, The freedom of the few That, in our free Land, were indeed the free, Can song renew?

Ill singing 'tis with blotting prison-bars, How high soe'er, betwixt us and the stars; Ill singing 'tis when there are none to hear; And days are near When England shall forget The fading glow which, for a little while, Illumes her yet, The lovely smile That grows so faint and wan, Her people shouting in her dying ear: Are not jays twain worth two of any swan!

Harsh words and brief asks the dishonor'd Year.