Ode
Rules quoted from the poets.org glossary; examples only from public-domain poems.
The rules, quoted
is a formal address to an event, a person, or a thing not present.
There are three typical types of odes: the Pindaric, Horatian, and Irregular.
the Horatian ode typically uses a regular, recurrent stanza pattern.
Pindaric odes were performed with a chorus and dancers, and often composed to celebrate athletic victories. They contain a formal opening, or strophe , of complex metrical structure, followed by an antistrophe , which mirrors the opening, and an epode
Our explanation written by Tale of the Muse
An ode addresses an event, a person or a thing that isn't present. The glossary names three kinds: the Pindaric, built from a strophe, a mirroring antistrophe and an epode; the Horatian, with a regular repeating stanza; and the Irregular. The example below is the opening of an ode.
Our plain-language restatement of the glossary rules above. It adds no facts of its own.
A public-domain example
Public domain in the US: the ebook's front matter prints 1902, before 1931, as the front matter quoted below shows. Only the opening lines are shown. The example illustrates the form; the rules above come from the glossary, not from the poem.
My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains
One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:
Project Gutenberg ebook #32373 · our check found this text on October 31, 2026
FRANCIS T. PALGRAVE LATE PROFESSOR OF POETRY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD REVISED AND ENLARGED London MACMILLAN AND CO., Limited NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1902