A.--Regular Pindaric

III.^ 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.^ 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.^ 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.)

This ode of Jonson's is apparently the earliest, and remained for a long time the only, notable English ode based on the strict structure of the Greek original. The Greek ode was commonly divided into the strophe, the antistrophe, and the epode; the strophe and antistrophe being identical in structure, though varying in different odes, and the epode being of different structure. Jonson therefore followed the classical form carefully, and introduced English terms to express the original three divisions.

Professor Bronson observes, in his Introduction to the Odes of Collins: "It is a commonplace that the Pindaric Ode in English is an artificial exotic, of slight native force, and unable to reproduce the effects of the Greek original. The reason is obvious. The Greek odes were accompanied by music and dancing, the singers moving to one side during the strophe, retracing their steps during the antistrophe, ... and standing still during the epode. The ear was thus helped by the eye, and the divisions of the ode were distinct and significant. But in an English Pindaric the elaborate correspondences and differences between strophe, antistrophe, and epode are lost upon most readers, and even the critical reader derives from them a pleasure intellectual rather than sensuous." (Edition of Collins, Athenæum Press Series, Introduction, pp. lxxiv, lxxv.)