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THOSE

of words may perhaps find it difficult to distinguish between an ode and a lyric, except that the latter term specified the instrument which should accompany the song. But the classes of poem are in fact widely separated, and we feel, if we do not accurately discriminate, the difference between them. It would not be easy to better Mr. Gosse's definition of an ode. 'We take,' he says, as an ode any strain of enthusiastic and exalted lyrical verse, directed to a fixed purpose, and dealing progressively with one dignified theme. A lyric, on the other hand, is a short poem dealing with one thought, essentially melodious in rhythm and structure, and, if a metaphor may be taken from the sister art, a simple air, without progression, variation, or accompaniment.

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If we wish to make the essentials of a lyric still clearer to ourselves, we shall find we are compelled to do so by negatives. It must not be in blank, nor in heroic verse; save indeed where

a refrain, and a subtle repetition of the same words gives lyrical impression, as in Tennyson's 'Tears, idle tears,' and some of the songs in the 'Idylls of the King.' It is not so severe in form as the sonnet; the poet's touch is lighter, even when his subject is grave; a dirge like 'Lycidas cannot be accounted such, nor a sustained and lofty poem as 'I have led her home' in 'Maud.'

Some of our greatest poets have left no true lyrics, or none into which they have put their best work. Pope's only examples are a burlesque, an imitation of Horace written when he was a mere child, and a paraphrase, also from the Latin; Gray affords us none; no adequately characteristic specimen can be culled from Spenser, or more than one or two from Milton, though the former lived so near in time to Shakspere and Ben Jonson, lyrists if any were, and the latter has been fitly termed 'inventor of harmonies,' so keen was his sense of song.

The present collection, therefore, is in no degree representative of the poets of England in their poetic rank. He who is much here quoted is not necessarily among the greatest, he who has scant or no place may be a far more exalted artist than some who are included, but he has worked less

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