in composition and so dependent upon the
jingle of the tunes to which they are sung that their life is little
longer than the time consumed in their production. But a large number
are conceived in the true spirit of art and are as worthy of immortality
as anything we read.

There are comic songs that sparkle with wit and whose music laughs with
the hearer; sentimental and love songs whose sensuous cadences intensify
the passion of their words; convivial songs where toasts are drunk to
the accompaniment of the clinking glasses; and patriotic songs that roll
with the ringing cheers of thousands and the tramp of armed men.

There are still three large classes of lyrics each distinct in itself,
though, as we see if we try to draw the lines closely, shading off into
one another. Usually these are in the nature of a direct address to some
person, place, or thing, and are distinguished one from another by the
nature of the subject or the rules of form. All are in a greater or less
degree complimentary to the thing addressed and show interest, respect,
admiration or love. The ode and elegy have most in common, although the
latter is a tribute to the dead. The sonnet partakes deeply of the
nature of the others, but is set off by very arbitrary limitations of
form.

There are no rules governing the form of the ode; the poet is at liberty
to select whatever form seems best adapted to his purpose. The length of
the stanza, the meter, the rhyme, may be as varied as his fancy
dictates, but the ode is an address direct and personal, an address with
praise for its object. The subject may be a flower, a piece of pottery,
a person, a bird or a nation, but some definite inciting object is
necessary. The ode is subjective in that the poet expresses his own
feeling of admiration or reverence. Often there is an acknowledgment of
a benefit conferred, a lesson learned, or affection returned. From these
conditions, namely, the liberty of form, the direct and powerful
inspiration, the sincere desire to return a favor, a poet might
naturally be expected to produce his choicest work, and so he has done.

A mournful song, in stately measure, praising the dead for his virtues,
full of the grief that remains with the living, believing in the
happiness of the departed and hoping for a blessed reunion in the
hereafter: this is the typical _elegy_. On the one side it shades off
into the ode, some poems being susceptible of classification in both
gr