Whom thunder's dismal noise, And all that Prophets and Apostles louder spake, And all the creatures' plain conspiring voice, Could not, whilst they liv'd, awake, This mightier sound shall make When dead t' arise, And open tombs, and open eyes, To the long sluggards of five thousand years. This mightier sound shall wake its hearers' ears. Then shall the scatter'd atoms crowding come Back to their ancient home. Some from birds, from fishes some, Some from earth, and some from seas, Some from beasts, and some from trees. Some descend from clouds on high, Some from metals upwards fly, And where th' attending soul naked and shivering stands, Meet, salute, and join their hands, As dispers'd soldiers at the trumpet's call Haste to their colors all. Unhappy most, like tortur'd men, Their joints new set, to be new-rack'd again, To mountains they for shelter pray; The mountains shake, and run about no less confus'd than they. Stop, stop, my Muse! allay thy vig'rous heat, Kindled at a hint so great. Hold thy Pindaric Pegasus closely in, Which does to rage begin, And this steep hill would gallop up with violent course; 'Tis an unruly and a hard-mouth'd horse, Fierce, and unbroken yet, Impatient of the spur or bit; Now prances stately, and anon flies o'er the place; Disdains the servile law of any settled pace; Conscious and proud of his own natural force, 'Twill no unskilful touch endure, But flings writer and reader too that sits not sure. (COWLEY: _The Resurrection_, strophes iii. and iv. 1656). Cowley, as has already appeared, introduced the irregular ode into English poetry, calling it "Pindaric" under a misapprehension of the real structure of the Greek odes. He published fifteen "Pindarique Odes" in 1656 (see the Preface to these, in Grosart's edition of his works, vol. ii. p. 4). The present specimen illustrates the really not unskilful use which Cowley made of the varying cadences of the form, and also sets forth--in the amusing concluding lines--his own idea of its difficulties.