The true Pindaric ode, as used by Pindar in ancient times, imitated by Ben Jonson, and corrected by late-eighteenth-century English poets, consisted of one or more triads, or groups of three stanzas. Properly organized, then, such an ode would be 3, 6, 9, 12, or 15 stanzas--possibly longer. Within each triad are a strophe, an antistrophe, and an epode. The strophes and antistrophes in each triad have the same form--in English, usually a rhyming pattern of twelve to twenty lines or so; all the epodes in the poem are different from the strophes and antistrophes, but identical to one another. Usually the form of the strophes and antistrophes is consistent throughout. Pindar's odes celebrated occasions that involved pomp and ceremony, and the Pindaric ode therefore is most properly employed to arouse or express strong feelings, even a divine afflatus, on an important occasion or subject. Because the seventeenth-century British poet, Abraham Cowley, either out of ignorance or willful disobedience, wrote poems that he called "Pindariques" that were simply irregular, the word "Pindaric" for a long time signified something close to "free verse" and was scorned on that account by Samuel Johnson. Eventually what came to be called the English irregular ode (q.v.) continued this mode and made possible some fine poems in the nineteenth century and later.
 

 The Progress of Poesy
                                    A PINDARIC ODE
 
 

                    AWAKE, Æolian lyre, awake,
                And give to rapture all thy trembling strings,
                From Helicon's harmonious springs
                  A thousand rills their mazy progress take:
                The laughing flowers, that round them blow,
                Drink life and fragrance as they flow.
                Now the rich stream of music winds along
                Deep, majestic, smooth, and strong,
                Thro' verdant vales, and Ceres' golden reign:
                Now rolling down the steep amain,
                Headlong, impetuous, see it pour;
                The rocks and nodding groves rebellow to the roar.

                  O Sovereign of the willing soul,
                Parent of sweet and solemn-breathing airs,
                Enchanting shell! the sullen Cares
                  And frantic Passions hear thy soft controul.
                On Thracia's hills the Lord of War
                Has curb'd the fury of his car,
                And dropp'd his thirsty lance at thy command.
                Perching on the sceptred hand
                Of Jove, thy magic lulls the feather'd king
                With ruffled plumes and flagging wing:
                Quench'd in dark clouds of slumber lie
                The terror of his beak, and lightnings of his eye.

                Thee the voice, the dance, obey,
                Temper'd to thy warbled lay.
                  O'er Idalia's velvet-green
                  The rosy-crownéd Loves are seen
                On Cytherea's day
                  With antic Sports, and blue-eyed Pleasures,
                  Frisking light in frolic measures;
                 Now pursuing, now retreating,
                   Now in circling troops they meet:
                 To brisk notes in cadence beating,
                  Glance their many-twinkling feet.
                Slow melting strains their Queen's approach declare:
                  Where'er she turns the Graces homage pay.
                With arms sublime, that float upon the air,
                  In gliding state she wins her easy way:
                O'er her warm cheek and rising bosom move
                The bloom of young Desire and purple light of Love.

                  Man's feeble race what ills await,
                Labour, and Penury, the racks of Pain,
                  Disease, and Sorrow's weeping train,
                  And Death, sad refuge from the storms of fate!
                The fond complaint, my song, disprove,
                And justify the laws of Jove.
                Say, has he giv'n in vain the heav'nly Muse?
                Night, and all her sickly dews,
                Her sceptres wan, and birds of boding cry,
                He gives to range the dreary sky:
                Till down the eastern cliffs afar
                Hyperion's march they spy, and glitt'ring shafts of war.

                  In climes beyond the solar road,
                Where shaggy forms o'er ice-built mountains roam,
                The Muse has broke the twilight gloom
                  To cheer the shiv'ring native's dull abode,
                And oft, beneath the od'rous shade
                Of Chili's boundless forests laid,
                She deigns to hear the savage youth repeat
                In loose numbers wildly sweet
                Their feather-cinctured chiefs, and dusky loves.
                Her track, where'er the Goddess roves,
                Glory pursue, and generous Shame,
                Th' unconquerable Mind, and Freedom's holy flame.

                Woods, that wave o'er Delphi's steep,
                Isles, that crown th' Ægean deep,
                  Fields, that cool Ilissus laves,
                  Or where Mæander's amber waves
                In lingering lab'rinths creep,
                  How do your tuneful echoes languish,
                  Mute, but to the voice of anguish?
                Where each old poetic mountain
                  Inspiration breathed around:
                Ev'ry shade and hallow'd fountain
                  Murmur'd deep a solemn sound:
                Till the sad Nine, in Greece's evil hour,
                  Left their Parnassus for the Latian plains.
                Alike they scorn the pomp of tyrant Power,
                  And coward Vice, that revels in her chains.
                When Latium had her lofty spirit lost,
                They sought, O Albion! next, thy sea-encircled coast.

                  Far from the sun and summer gale,
                In thy green lap was Nature's darling laid,
                What time, where lucid Avon stray'd,
                  To Him the mighty mother did unveil
                Her awful face: the dauntless child
                Stretch'd forth his little arms, and smiled.
                This pencil take (she said), whose colours clear
                Richly paint the vernal year:
                Thine too these golden keys, immortal boy!
                This can unlock the gates of joy;
                Of horror that, and thrilling fears,
                Or ope the sacred source of sympathetic tears.

                  Nor second he, that rode sublime
                Upon the seraph-wings of Ecstasy,
                The secrets of th' abyss to spy.
                  He pass'd the flaming bounds of place and time:
                The living Throne, the sapphire-blaze,
                Where Angels tremble while they gaze,
                He saw; but blasted with excess of light,
                Closed his eyes in endless night.
                Behold, where Dryden's less presumptuous car,
                Wide o'er the fields of glory bear
                Two coursers of ethereal race,
                With necks in thunder clothed, and long-resounding pace.
 

                Hark, his hands the lyre explore!
                Bright-eyed Fancy hovering o'er
                  Scatters from her pictured urn
                  Thoughts that breathe, and words that burn.
                But ah! 'tis heard no more——
                  O Lyre divine! what daring Spirit
                  Wakes thee now? Tho' he inherit
                Nor the pride, nor ample pinion,
                  That the Theban eagle bear
                Sailing with supreme dominion
                  Thro' the azure deep of air:
                Yet oft before his infant eyes would run
                  Such forms as glitter in the Muse's ray,
                With orient hues, unborrow'd of the Sun:
                  Yet shall he mount, and keep his distant way
               Beyond the limits of a vulgar fate,
               Beneath the Good how far—but far above the Great.
                                                     --Thomas Gray

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