The irregular ode originated in the seventeenth century as an effort to capture the exalted emotion and erratic movement of the Pindaric ode (q. v.). Either by intent or misunderstanding, Abraham Cowley began writing what he called "Pindariques," and the fad for this free-verse composition persisted through most of the eighteenth century. Finally, beginning with Wordsworth and Coleridge (as well as some earlier poets) the irregular ode took on a life of its own and abandoned the pomposity and pretense of its earlier manifestations. Some of the best poems of the last two centuries might be classified as irregular odes.
 

An Ode, On the Death of Mr. Henry Purcell

      Late Servant to his Majesty, and Organist of the Chapel Royal, and of St. Peter's
      Westminster

                       I

            MARK how the Lark and Linnet Sing,
                  With rival Notes
            They strain their warbling Throats,
                  To welcome in the Spring.
                  But in the close of Night,
            When Philomel begins her Heav'nly lay,
                  They cease their mutual spite,
                  Drink in her Music with delight,
            And list'ning and silent, and silent and list'ning,
                        And list'ning and silent obey.

                       II

            So ceas'd the rival Crew when Purcell came,
            They Sung no more, or only Sung his Fame.
            Struck dumb they all admir'd the God-like Man,
                        The God-like Man,
                  Alas, too soon retir'd,
                  As He too late began.
            We beg not Hell, our Orpheus to restore,
                  Had He been there,
                  Their Sovereign's fear
                  Had sent Him back before.
            The pow'r of Harmony too well they know,
            He long e'er this had Tun'd their jarring Sphere,
                  And left no Hell below.

                       III

            The Heav'nly Choir, who heard his Notes from high,
            Let down the Scale of Music from the Sky:
                  They handed him along,
            And all the way He taught, and all the way they Sung.
                  Ye Brethren of the Lyre, and tuneful Voice,
                  Lament his Lot: but at your own rejoice.
                  Now live secure and linger out your days,
                  The Gods are pleas'd alone with Purcell's Lays,
                        Nor know to mend their Choice.
                                                --John Dryden

Ode

Inscribed to W.H. Channing

            THOUGH loath to grieve
            The evil time's sole patriot,
            I cannot leave
            My honeyed thought
            For the priest's cant,
            Or statesman's rant.

            If I refuse
            My study for their politic,
            Which at the best is trick,
            The angry Muse
            Puts confusion in my brain.

            But who is he that prates
            Of the culture of mankind,
            Of better arts and life?
            Go, blindworm, go,
            Behold the famous States
            Harrying Mexico
            With rifle and with knife!

            Or who, with accent bolder
            Dare praise the freedom-loving mountaineer?
            I found by thee, O rushing Contoocook!
            And in thy valleys, Agiochook!
            The jackals of the Negro-holder.

            The God who made New Hampshire
            Taunted the lofty land
            With little men;--
            Small bat and wren
            House in the oak:--
            If earth-fire cleave
            The upheaved land, and bury the folk,
            The southern crocodile would grieve.
            Virtue palters; Right is hence;
            Freedom praised, but hid;
            Funeral eloquence
            Rattles the coffin lid.

            What boots thy zeal,
            O glowing friend,
            That would indignant rend
            The northland from the south?
            Wherefore? to what good end?
            Boston Bay and Bunker Hill
            Would serve things still;--
            Things are of the snake.

            The horseman serves the horse
            The neatherd serves the neat,
            The merchant serves the purse,
            The eater serves his meat;
            'Tis the day of the chattel,
            Web to weave, and corn to grind;
            Things are in the saddle,
            And ride mankind.

            There are two laws discrete,
            Not reconciled,--
            Law for man, and law for thing;
            The last builds town and fleet,
            But it runs wild,
            And doth the man unking.

            'Tis fit the forest fall,
            The steep be graded,
            The mountain tunneled,
            The sand shaded,
            The orchard planted,
            The glebe tilled,
            The prairie granted
            The steamer built.

            Let man serve law for man;
            Live for friendship, live for love,
            For truth's and harmony's behoof;
            The state may follow how it can,
            As Olympus follows Jove.

            Yet do not I implore
            The wrinkled shopman to my sounding woods,
            Nor did the unwilling senator
            Ask votes of thrushes in the solitudes.
            Everyone to his chosen work--
            Foolish hands may mix and mar;
            Wise and sure the issues are.
            Round they roll till dark is light,
            Sex to sex, and even to odd;--
            The overgod
            Who marries Right to Might,
            Who peoples, unpeoples,--
            He who exterminates
            Races by stronger races,
            Black by white faces,--
            Knows to bring honey
            Out of the lion;
            Grafts gentlest scion
            On pirate and Turk.

            The Cossack eats Poland,
            Like stolen fruit;
            Her last noble is ruined,
            Her last poet mute;
            Straight, into double band
            The victors divide;
            Half for freedom strike and stand;--
            The astonished Muse finds thousands at her side.
                                    --Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ode in Memory of the American Volunteers Fallen for
France

(To have been read before the statue of Lafayette and Washington in Paris, on Decoration Day,
May 30, 1916.)

I

      Ay, it is fitting on this holiday,
      Commemorative of our soldier dead,
      When -- - with sweet flowers of our New England May
      Hiding the lichened stones by fifty years made gray -- -
      Their graves in every town are garlanded,
      That pious tribute should be given too
      To our intrepid few
      Obscurely fallen here beyond the seas.
      Those to preserve their country's greatness died;
      But by the death of these
      Something that we can look upon with pride
      Has been achieved, nor wholly unreplied
      Can sneerers triumph in the charge they make
      That from a war where Freedom was at stake
      America withheld and, daunted, stood aside.

II

      Be they remembered here with each reviving spring,
      Not only that in May, when life is loveliest,
      Around Neuville-Saint-Vaast and the disputed crest
      Of Vimy, they, superb, unfaltering,
      In that fine onslaught that no fire could halt,
      Parted impetuous to their first assault;
      But that they brought fresh hearts and springlike too
      To that high mission, and 'tis meet to strew
      With twigs of lilac and spring's earliest rose
      The cenotaph of those
      Who in the cause that history most endears
      Fell in the sunny morn and flower of their young years.

III

      Yet sought they neither recompense nor praise,
      Nor to be mentioned in another breath
      Than their blue coated comrades whose great days
      It was their pride to share -- - ay, share even to the death!
      Nay, rather, France, to you they rendered thanks
      (Seeing they came for honor, not for gain),
      Who, opening to them your glorious ranks,
      Gave them that grand occasion to excel,
      That chance to live the life most free from stain
      And that rare privilege of dying well.

IV

      O friends! I know not since that war began
      From which no people nobly stands aloof
      If in all moments we have given proof
      Of virtues that were thought American.
      I know not if in all things done and said
      All has been well and good,
      Or if each one of us can hold his head
      As proudly as he should,
      Or, from the pattern of those mighty dead
      Whose shades our country venerates to-day,
      If we've not somewhat fallen and somewhat gone astray.
      But you to whom our land's good name is dear,
      If there be any here
      Who wonder if her manhood be decreased,
      Relaxed its sinews and its blood less red
      Than that at Shiloh and Antietam shed,
      Be proud of these, have joy in this at least,
      And cry: "Now heaven be praised
      That in that hour that most imperilled her,
      Menaced her liberty who foremost raised
      Europe's bright flag of freedom, some there were
      Who, not unmindful of the antique debt,
      Came back the generous path of Lafayette;
      And when of a most formidable foe
      She checked each onset, arduous to stem -- -
      Foiled and frustrated them -- -
      On those red fields where blow with furious blow
      Was countered, whether the gigantic fray
      Rolled by the Meuse or at the Bois Sabot,
      Accents of ours were in the fierce melee;
      And on those furthest rims of hallowed ground
      Where the forlorn, the gallant charge expires,
      When the slain bugler has long ceased to sound,
      And on the tangled wires
      The last wild rally staggers, crumbles, stops,
      Withered beneath the shrapnel's iron showers: -- -
      Now heaven be thanked, we gave a few brave drops;
      Now heaven be thanked, a few brave drops were ours."

V

      There, holding still, in frozen steadfastness,
      Their bayonets toward the beckoning frontiers,
      They lie -- - our comrades -- - lie among their peers,
      Clad in the glory of fallen warriors,
      Grim clusters under thorny trellises,
      Dry, furthest foam upon disastrous shores,
      Leaves that made last year beautiful, still strewn
      Even as they fell, unchanged, beneath the changing moon;
      And earth in her divine indifference
      Rolls on, and many paltry things and mean
      Prate to be heard and caper to be seen.
      But they are silent, calm; their eloquence
      Is that incomparable attitude;
      No human presences their witness are,
      But summer clouds and sunset crimson-hued,
      And showers and night winds and the northern star.
      Nay, even our salutations seem profane,
      Opposed to their Elysian quietude;
      Our salutations calling from afar,
      From our ignobler plane
      And undistinction of our lesser parts:
      Hail, brothers, and farewell; you are twice blest, brave hearts.
      Double your glory is who perished thus,
      For you have died for France and vindicated us.
                                                                --Alan Seeger

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