LYRICS are those verses which are commonly used in lyrical poetry. Such are those of Piudar, of Horace's odes, and of the tragic, and comic choruses. They are generally short, in order, as is said, to agree better with the time of any music which might have been intended to accompany them. The old grammarians divided all verses into those in which the metre was repeated In each line (say& crrissov), such as hexameters, iambics, and trochaics ; and those which require more lines than one to make up a system (Kara a6aTnaa), as in the case of Sapphic or Alcaio verses, or a choric strophe. The latter division contains almost all the lyric metres known, including nearly all Horace's odes, all Pindar's, and all the choruses and even anapestic systems. Of these strophes a further division has been made, into longer, such as Pindar, Stesichorue, Simonides, and the Greek dramatists employed ; and shorter, such as those of the earlier Ionian and IGolian poets, of their imitators, and of Seneca, besides rare examples in the Greek dramatists.
Hermann further distinguishes the longer strophes into Dorian, sEolian, and Lydian, of which he gives examples from Pindar to prove that the first was used where impressive majesty was requisite, the second to give a notion of rapidity and vehemence, and the third as possessing part of the qualities of each.
A question has arisen, and it is at all events a curious point, why lyrical poems are generally divided into lines so much shorter than heroic. That such was the case in Greek and Roman poetry is certain, and it is not explained by saying that they were sung to an accompani ment, for surely there is just as much reason to suppose that Homer's long hexameters were chanted as Anacreon's short iambics, and music might be as well adapted to one as to the other.