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In his hands it is bold and sometimes rugged, but
always powerful and handled with great ease: he fashioned it for Pope to
polish. Of this, his larger poems are full of proof. But there is another
verse, of irregular rhythm, in which he was even more successful,--lyric
poetry as found in the irregular ode, varying from the short line to the
"Alexandrine dragging its slow length along;" the staccato of a harp
ending in a lengthened flow of melody.
Thus long ago,
Ere heaving billows learned to blow,
While organs yet were mute;
Timotheus to his breathing flute
And sounding lyre
Could swell the soul to rage, or kindle soft desire.
When he became a Roman Catholic, St. Cecilia, "inventress of the vocal
frame," became his chief devotion; and the _Song on St. Cecilia's Day_ and
_An Ode to St. Cecilia_, are the principal illustrations of this new
power.
Gray, who was remarkable for his own lyric power, told Dr. Beattie that if
there were any excellence in his own numbers, he had learned it wholly
from Dryden.


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