are necessary parts-should catch, in short, that inevitableness
of structure upon which we have already touched. In order to
justify a poet in writing a poem in three different kinds of movement,
governed by no musical and no terpsichorean necessity,
a necessity of another kind should make itself ap arent; that is,
the metrical wave moving in the strophe should) be metrically
answered by the counter-wave moving in the anti strophe, while the
epode-which, as originally conceived by Stesichorus, was merely
a standing still after the balanced movements of the stro he and
anti strophe-should clearly, in a language like ours, be a blended
echo of these two. A mere metrical contrast such as some poets
labour to effect is not a metrical answer. And if the reply to this
criticism be that in Pindar himself no such metrical scheme is
apparent, that is the strongest possible argument in support of
our position. If indeed the metrical scheme of Pindar is not
apparent, that is because, having been written for chanting, it was
subordinate to the lost musical scheme of the musician. It has
been contended, and is likely enough, that this musical scheme was
simple-as simple, perhaps, as the scheme of a cathedral chant,
but to it, whatever it was, the metrical scheme of the poet was
subordinated. It need scarcely be said that the phrase HI'l1€t1lC3l
scheme” is used here not in the narrow sense as indicating the
position and movement of strophe and anti strophe by way of
simple contrast, but in the deep metrical sense as indicating the
value of each of these component parts of the ode, as a counter-wave
balancing and explaining the other waves in the harmony of the
entire composition. We touch upon this matter in order to show
that the moment odes ceased to be chanted, the words strophe,
anti strophe, and epode lost the musical value they had among the
Greeks, and pretended to a complex metrical value which their
actual metrical structure does not appear to justify. It does
not follow from this that odes should not be so arranged, but it
does follow that the poet's arrangement should justify itself by
disclosing an entire metrical scheme in place of the musical scheme
to which the Greek choral l ric was evidently subordinated. But
even if the poet were a sufficiently skilled metricise to compass a
scheme embracing a wave, an answering wave, and an echo gat ering
up the tones of each, ze. the stro he, the anti strophe and the
epode, the ear of the reader, unaidled by the musical emphasis
which supported the rhythms of the old choral lyric, is, it should
seem, incapable of athering up and remembering the sounds
further than the stroplie and the anti strophe, after which it demands
not an epode but a retu1n to the strophe. That is to say, an epode,
as alternating in the body of the modern ode, is a mistake; a single
epode at the end of a grou of strophes and anti strophes (as in some
of the Greek odes) has, ofp course, a different function altogether.
The great difficulty of theEnglish ode is that of preventing the
apparent spontaneity of the impulse from being marred by the
apparent artifice of the form; for, assuredly, no writer subsequent
to Coleridge and to Keats would dream of writing an ode on the cold
Horatian principles adopted by Warton, and even by Collins, in his
beautiful ' Ode to Evening."
Of the second kind of regular odes, those consisting of a regular succession of regular stanzas, the so-called odes of Sappho are, of course, so transcendent that no other amatory lyrics can e compared with them. Never before these songs were sung and never since did the human soul, in the grip of a fiery passion, utter a cry like hers; and from the executive point of view, in directness, in lucidity, in that high imperious verbal econom which only nature herself can teach the artist, she has no equal: and none worthy to take the place of second-not even in Heine, nor even in Burns. Turning, however, to modern oetry, there are some magnificent examples of this simple form olf ode in English poetry-Spenser's immortal “ Epithalamion ” leading the way in point of tirne, and probably also in point of excellence
Fervour being absolutely essential, we think, to a great English ode, fluidity of metrical movement can never be dispensed with. The more billowy the metrical waves the better suited are they to render the emotions expressed by the ode, as the reader will see by referring to Coler1dge's “Ode to France” (the finest ode in the English language, according to Shelley), and giving s ecial attention to the first stanza-to the way in which the first metrical wave, after it had gently fallen at the end of the first quatrain, leaps up again on the double rhymes (which are express y introduced for this effect), and goes bounding on, billow after billow, to the end of the stanza. Not that this fine ode is quite free from the great vice of the En lish ode, rhetoric If we except Spenser and, in one instance, Cogins, it can hardly be said that any English writer before Shelley and Keats produced odes independent of rhetoric and supported bv pure poetry alone. But fervid as are Shelley's “ Ode to the West Wind ” and Keats/s odes “To a Nightingale" and “On a Grecian Urn, " they are entirely free from rhetorical flavour Notwithstanding that in the “ Ode on a Grecian Urn ” the first stanza does not match in rhyme arrangement with the others, while the second stanza of the “ Ode to a Nightingale “ varies from the rest by running on four rhyme-sounds instead of five, vexing the ear at first by disappointed expectation, these two odes are, after Coleridge's “ France, " the finest regular odes perhaps in the English language.
With regard to the French ode, Malherbe was the first writer who brought it to perfection. Malherbe showed also more variety of mood than it is the fashion just now to credit him with. This may be especially noted in his “ Ode to Louis XIII “ His disciple Racan is not of much account. There is certainly much vigour in the odes of Rousseau, but it is not till we reach Victor Hugo that we realize what French poetry can achieve in this line, and contemporary poetry can hardly be examined here. We may say, of Hugo's odes are truly inagnificent. As a
however, that some
pure lyrist his place among t he greatest poets of the world is very igh. Here, though writing in an inferior language, he ranks with the greatest masters of Greece, of England, and of Germany. Had he attempted no other kind of poetry than l rical, his would still have been the first name in French poetry. lli/hatever is defective in his work arises, as in the case of Euripides, from the importation of lyrical force where dramatic force is mainly needed. The main varieties of lyrical poetry, such as the idyll, the satire, the ballad, the sonnet, &c., are treated in separate articles; but a word or two must be said here about the song Th e Song.
and the elegy. To write a good song requires that simplicity of grammatical structure which is foreign to many natures-that mastery over direct and simple speech which only true passion and feeling can give, and which “coming from the heart goes to the heart." Without going so far as to say that no man is a poet who cannot write a good song, it may certainly be said that no man can Write a good song who is not a good poet. In modern times we have, of course, nothing in any way representing those choral dance-songs of the Greeks, which, originating in the primitive Cretan war-dances, became, in Pindar's time, a splendid blending of song and ballet. Nor have we anything exactly representing the Greek scolia, those short drinking songs of which Terpander is said to have been the inventor. That these scolia Were written, not only by poets like Alcaeus, Anacreon, Praxilla, Simonides, but also by Sappho and by Pindar, shows in what high esteem they were held by the Greeks. These songs seem to have been as brief as the stornelli of the Italian peasant. They were accompanied by the lyre, which was handed from singer to singer as the time for each scolion came round.
With regard to the stornello, many critics seem to confound it with the rispetto, a very different kind of song. The Italian rispetto consists of a stanza of inter-rhyming lines ranging from six to ten in number, but often not exceeding eight. The Tuscan and Umbrian stornello is much shorter, consisting, indeed, of a hemistich naming some natural object which suggests the motive of the little poem. The nearest approach to the Italian stornello appears to be, not the rispetto, but the Welsh triban. Perhaps the mere difficulty of rhyming in English and the facility of rhyming in Italian must be taken into account when we inquire why there is nothing in Scotland-of course there could be nothing in England-answering to the nature-poetry of the Italian peasant. Most of the Italian rispetti and stornelli seem to be improvisations; and to improvise in English is as difficult as to improvise is easy in Italian. Nothing indeed is more interesting than the improvisatorial poetry of the Italian peasants, such as the canzone. If the peasantry discover who is the composer of a canzone, they will not sing it. The speciality of Italian peasant poetry is that the symbol which is mostly erotic is of the purest and most tender kind. A peasant girl will improvise a song as impassioned as “ Come into the Garden, Maud, ” and as free from unwholesome taint.
With regard to English songs, the critic cannot but ask-Wherein lies the lost ring and charm of the Elizabethan songwriters? Since the Iacobean period at least. few have succeeded in the art of Writing real songs as distinguished from mere book lyrics. Between songs to be sung and songs to be read there is in our time a difference as wide as that which exists between plays for the closet and plays for the boards. Heartiness and melody-the two requisites of a song which can never be dispensed with-can rarely be compassed, it seems, by one and the same individual. In both these qualities the Elizabethan poets stand pre-eminent, though even with them the melody is not so singable as it might be made. Since their time heartiness has, perhaps, been a Scottish rather than an English endowment of the song-writer. It is difficult to imagine an Englishman Writing a song like “ Tullochgorum " or a song
