Beyond the measure vast of thought, The works the wizard Time has wrought! The Gaul, 'tis held of antique story, Saw Britain link'd to his now adverse strand; No sea between, nor cliff sublime and hoary, He pass'd with unwet feet thro' all our land. To the blown Baltic then, they say, The wild waves found another way, Where Orcas howls, his wolfish mountains rounding; Till all the banded West at once 'gan rise, A wide wild storm ev'n Nature's self confounding, With'ring her giant sons with strange uncouth surprise. This pillar'd earth so firm and wide, By winds and inward labors torn, In thunders dread was push'd aside, And down the should'ring billows borne. And see, like gems, her laughing train, The little isles on every side! Mona, once hid from those who search the main, Where thousand elfin shapes abide, And Wight, who checks the west'ring tide; For thee consenting Heaven has each bestowed, A fair attendant on her sovereign pride. To thee this blest divorce she ow'd, For thou hast made her vales thy lov'd, thy last abode! (COLLINS: _Ode to Liberty_, strophe and antistrophe. 1746.) This ode consists of strophe, epode, antistrophe, and second epode. The antistrophe corresponds metrically to the strophe, as usual; the epodes are in four-stress couplets. It was Collins's habit to place the epode between the strophe and antistrophe, perhaps, as Professor Bronson suggests, in order that it may produce "an impression of its own analogous to that of the Greek epode, namely, an impression of relief and repose." Mr. Bronson says further of Collins's odes: "Collins was less scholarly than Gray, but he was bolder and more original; and consciously or unconsciously he so constructed his odes that their organic parts stand out clearly distinct and produce effects analogous to those produced by the Greek ode. In brief, his method was, first, to make large divisions of the thought correspond to the large divisions of the form; and, second, to throw out into relief the complex strophe and antistrophe by contrasting them with a simple epode. The reader may not perceive the minute correspondences in form between strophe and antistrophe, but he can hardly fail to feel that the two answer to one another in a general way." (Athenæum Press edition of Collins, Introduction, p. lxxv.) III^{1}