Defintion

A lengthy lyric poem typically of a serious or meditative nature and having an elevated style and formal stanza structure. A classic ode is structured in three parts: the strophe, the antistrophe, and the epode. Different forms such as the homostrophic ode and the irregular ode also exist.

Example

Excerpt---

Intimations of Immortality

by William Wordsworth

I
There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,
The earth, and every common sight,
To me did seem
Apparelled in celestial light,
The glory and the freshness of a dream.
It is not now as it hath been of yore;-
Turn whereso'er I may,
By night or day,
The things which I have seen I now can see no more.

II
The rainbow comes and goes,
And lovely is the rose,
The Moon doth with delight
Look round her when the heavens are bare;
Waters on a starry night
Are beautiful and fair;
The sunshine is a glorious birth;
But yet I know, where'er I go,
That there hath past away a glory from the earth.

Defintion

The ottava rima stanza in English consists of eight iambic lines, usually iambic pentameters. Each stanza consists of three rhymes following the rhyme scheme a-b-a-b-a-b-c-c. The form is similar to the older Sicilian octave, but evolved separately and is unrelated. The Sicilian octave is derived from the medieval strambotto and was a crucial step in the development of the sonnet, whereas the ottava rima is related to the canzone, a stanza form.

Example

From Frere's Whistlecraft:

But chiefly, when the shadowy moon had shed

O'er woods and waters her mysterious hue,

Their passive hearts and vacant fancies fed

With thoughts and aspirations strange and new,

Till their brute souls with inward working bred

Dark hints that in the depths of instinct grew

Subjection not from Locke's associations,

Nor David Hartley's doctrine of vibrations.

From Byron's Don Juan:

"Go, little book, from this my solitude!

I cast thee on the waters – go thy ways!

And if, as I believe, thy vein be good,

The world will find thee after many days."

When Southey 's read, and Wordsworth understood,

I can't help putting in my claim to praise –

The four first rhymes are Southey's every line:

For God's sake, reader! take them not for mine.