Odes

“ Then I had to consider the question of a uniform metre to answer to the Latin. Both of those which I had already tried were rendered impracticable by a double rhyme, which, however manageable in one or two Odes, is unmanageable, as I have before intimated, in the case of a large number. The former of the two measures, divested of the double rhyme, would, I think, lose most of its attractiveness ”

“ we consulted the guide-books and were rejoiced to know that there were no sights in Odessa to see; and so we had one good, untrammeled holyday on our hands, with nothing to do but idle about the city and enjoy ourselves. ”

“ While mute and shrinking with her fears,
Each blast the cottage-matron hears
As o'er the hearth she sits alone:
At morn her bridegroom went abroad,
The night is dark and deep the road;
She sighs and wishes him at home. ”

“ He was a handsome young fellow, and stated that he was called Odo, and was the son of a neighbouring king, and that, having gone forth in search of treasure and adventures, he had succeeded in amassing a large quantity of gold and precious stones, and was on his way home, when he heard of the wonderful bird, who could foretell the future. He had gained the valley and was almost close to the bird, when he incautiously looked back, hearing wild cries for help, and in that moment he had been turned to stone, and his were the quaintly shaped chests Olga had noticed. ”

“ De Crucis understood the force of these traditional influences; but Odo, in common with the more cultivated men of his day, had lived too long in an atmosphere of polite scepticism to measure the profound hold of religion on the consciousness of the people. Christ had been so long banished from the drawing-room that it was has hard to believe that He still ruled in field and vineyard. To men of Odo's stamp the piety of the masses was a mere superficial growth, a kind of mental mould to be dried off by the first beams of knowledge. ”

“ Nothing could be more dissimilar than the features and the respective characters of Otho and Warbeck. Otho’s countenance was flushed with the brown hues of health; his eyes were of the brightest hazel: his dark hair wreathed in short curls round his open and fearless brow; the jest ever echoed on his lips, and his step was bounding as the foot of the hunter of the Alps. Bold and light was his spirit; if at times he betrayed the haughty insolence of youth, he felt generously, and though not ever ready to confess sorrow for a fault, he was at least ready to brave peril for a friend. ”

“ De Crucis was again silent, and Odo was aware of the renewed intentness of his scrutiny. "If the lady--" broke from him once; but he checked himself and took a turn in the room.
Meanwhile a resolve was slowly forming itself in Odo. He would not be false to the call which, since his boyhood, had so often made itself heard before the voice of pleasure and self-interest; but he would at least reserve the right to obey it in his own fashion and under conditions which left his private inclination free.
"There may be more than one way of serving one's fellows," he said quietly. ”

“ I tell thee, priest, that if thy benediction has never been pronounced upon our union, we are man and wife before heaven.”
“I await your answer,” said Odo. “Am I to understand you choose the fearful penalty of excommunication?”
“Nay! nay! he does not; he cannot,” cried the counsellors. “Your holiness!—father!—in the king’s name we yield!”
“You are all cowards and traitors! Let him do what he will, I cannot yield.”
“Then, my lord king, I must proceed,” said Odo. ”

“ ODIN The Father of Gods and Men ODIN, Wuotan, or Woden was the highest and holiest god of the Northern races. He was the all-pervading spirit of the universe, the personification of the air, the god of universal wisdom and victory, and the leader and protector of princes and heroes. ”

“ Light and music streamed from the long facade overhead, but the lower gardens lay hushed and dark, the air fragrant with unseen flowers, the late moon just burnishing the edges of the laurel-thickets from which, now and again, a nightingale's song gushed in a fountain of sound. Odo, spellbound, followed the others without a thought of his own share in the adventure. Never before had beauty so ministered to every sense. He felt himself lost in his surroundings, absorbed in the scent and murmur of the night. ”

“ Thy grave brother, Sir Otho, will have much to do to comfort his cousin when she sees what a gallant life she would have led with thee."
"Poor damsel," said the Greek, with affected pity, "doubtless she will now be reconciled to the rejected one. I hear he is a knight of a comely mien."
"Peace!" said Otho, sternly, and quaffing a large goblet of wine.
The Greek bit her lip, and glanced meaningly at the Templar, who returned the glance.
"Nought but a beauty such as thine can win my pardon," said Otho, turning to his bride, and gazing passionately in her face. ”

“ As the procession wound into the church, to the ringing of bells and the chanting of the choir, Odo was struck by the spectacle of that line of witnesses, watching in glassy-eyed irony the pomp and display to which their moldering robes and tarnished insignia seemed to fix so brief a term. Once or twice already he had felt the shows of human power as no more than vanishing reflections on the tide of being ”

“ Not the man of mortal race Knows the words which thou hast spoken To thy son in days of yore. I hear the coming tread of death; He soon shall raze the runic lore, And knowledge of the rise of gods, From his ill-fated soul who strove With Odin's self the strife of wit, Wisest of the wise that breathe: Our stake was life, and thou hast won. ”

“ When we inquire whom Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday and Friday are named after, and press questions in reference to Tyr, Odin, Thor and Freyja, we get at best but a wise and knowing look. Are we, then, as a nation, like the ancient Jews, and do we bend the knee before the gods of foreign nations and forsake the altars of our own gods? What if we then should suffer the fate of that unhappy people—be scattered over all the world and lose our fatherland? In these Eddas our fathers have bequeathed unto us all their profoundest, all their sublimest, all their best thought. ”

“ Odo's late experiences had wakened him to the influences acting on that obscure substratum of human life that still seemed, to most men of his rank, of no more account than the brick lining of their marble-coated palaces. As he watched the mounting excitement of the throng, and pictured to himself the lives suddenly lit up by this pledge of unseen promises, he wondered that the enemies of the Church should ascribe her predominance to any cause but the natural needs of the heart. The people lived in unlit hovels, for there was a tax on mental as well as on material windows ”

“ And cloud-compelling Zeus replied: “Still shine, O Sun! among the deathless gods and mortal men, upon the nourishing earth. Soon will I cleave with a white thunder-bolt their galley in the midst of a black sea.”
When Odysseus came to the ship beside the sea, he spoke to them all sternly, man after man, yet he could think of no redress. The beeves were dead, and now the gods amazed them with prodigies. The skins moved and crawled, the flesh, both raw and roasted on the spits, lowed with the voice of oxen. Six whole days the men feasted, taking from the herd the Sun’s best oxen. ”

“ In the Eddas the natural powers have been partly subdued, partly thrust on one side, for a time, by Odin and Æsir, by the Great Father and his children, by One Supreme and twelve subordinate gods, who rule for an appointed time, and over whom hangs an impending fate, which imparts a charm of melancholy to this creed, which has clung to the race who once believed in it long after the creed itself has vanished before the light of Christianity. ”

“ Like a lion fresh from the slaughter stood Odysseus, leaning on his spear, and covered with blood from head to foot. As he glared round him to see if any of his foes were still alive, his eye fell on Phemius, the minstrel, who was crouching in a corner near the side door, and clinging in terror to his harp. Seeing the stern gaze of Odysseus fixed upon him Phemius sprang forward, with a sudden impulse, and threw himself at the conqueror's feet, "Pity me, Odysseus," he cried, "and spare me! Thy days will be darkened by remorse if thou slay the sweet minstrel whom gods and men revere. ”

“ Odo's face was calm and grave. The Benedictine monk had been listening intently, but with a detached interest, as to some tale which, even if it concerned himself, could not in the least disturb his equanimity. With his supernormal quickness of perception he knew at once the powers with which he had to cope. Tristan had told him of the devilish face in the panel during the night of his first watch at the Lateran.
"The powers of Evil at work are so great that only a miracle from heaven can save us," he said at last. ”

“ The Marchioness thereupon, with many tears, hung a scapular about Odo's neck, bidding him shun the theatre and be regular at confession; one of the canonesses reminded him not to omit a visit to the chapel of the Holy Winding-sheet, while the other begged him to burn a candle for her at the Consolata; and the servants pressed forward to embrace and bless their little master.
Day was high by this, and as the Marquess's travelling-chariot rumbled down the valley the shadows seemed to fly before it. Odo at first lay numb; but presently his senses woke to the call of the brightening landscape. ”

“ This, then, was the famous Procuratore Bra, whose house had given three Doges to Venice, and who was himself regarded as the most powerful if not the most scrupulous noble of his day. Odo had heard many tales of his singularities, for in a generation of elegant triflers his figure stood out with the ruggedness of a granite boulder in a clipped and gravelled garden. To hereditary wealth and influence he added a love of power seconded by great political sagacity and an inflexible will. ”

“ The Younger Edda once calls him Allfather, for he is to the new world what Odin was to the old. He was before the beginning of time, and at the end of time he enters upon his eternal reign.
The reward is eternal. Is the punishment also eternal? When light and darkness (Balder and Hoder) can live peaceably together,—when darkness can resolve itself into light,—cannot then the evil be dissolved in the good; cannot the eternal streams of goodness wash away the evil? We think so, and the Edda seems to justify us in this thought; at least the Elder Edda seems to 435take this view of the subject. ”

“ She was unwell, and not to be disturbed. The gay Templar was the life of the board.
"Thou carriest a sad brow to-day, Sir Otho," said he; "good faith, thou hast caught it from the air of Liebenstein."
"I have something troubles me," answered Otho, forcing a smile, "which I would fain impart to thy friendly bosom. The night is clear and the moon is up, let us forth alone into the garden."
The Templar rose, and he forgot not to gird on his sword as he followed the knight.
Otho led the way to one of the most distant terraces that overhung the Rhine. ”

“ Peering through the grated door of each little edifice, Odo beheld within a group of terra-cotta figures representing some scene of the Passion—here a Last Supper, with a tigerish Judas and a Saint John resting his yellow curls on his Master's bosom, there an Entombment or a group of stricken Maries. These figures, though rudely modelled and daubed with bright colours, yet, by a vivacity of attitude and gesture which the mystery of their setting enhanced, conveyed a thrilling impression of the sacred scenes set forth ”

“ Every colour, every gesture, every word and note of music that made up the texture of the gorgeous ceremonial might indeed seem part of a long-studied and astutely-planned effect. Yet each had its root in some instinct of the heart, some natural development of the inner life, so that they were in fact not the cunningly-adjusted fragments of an arbitrary pattern but the inseparable fibres of a living organism. It was Odo's misfortune to see too far ahead on the road along which his destiny was urging him. ”

“ Who once to faithless foes has knelt;
Yes, Carthage yet his spear will fly,
Who with bound arms the cord has felt,
The coward, and has fear'd to die.
He knows not, he, how life is won;
Thinks war, like peace, a thing of trade! ”

“ Otho remained always in Rome and Italy, for which he had a special predilection. Nothing can be more beautiful than the picture of this venerable and learned old man, with his gifted and loving pupil by his side, “pulchri Cæsaris pulcherrima proles,” filling together the throne of ancient, eternal Rome with their pontifical and imperial majesty. What a subject for a painter or a poet! Otho is one of the most winning characters to be found in all history. His mother, the Greek princess, had given him an exquisite mental culture, and his grandmother, St. Adelaide, a most pious education. ”

“ The Bishop of Coutances and Duke William's half-brother Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, both these high officials of the Church were there to stay the hands of their parishioners, and uphold the devout fighters in this crusade. Odo made the soldiers promise that whoever survived the morrow's battle would never again eat meat on Saturday; by such petty means he hoped to gain success at the hands of God who rules battles on a larger scope, and who, through the quarrels and jealousies of men, brings slowly near the day when justice shall be done on earth as it is in heaven. ”