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 which were the earliest of their kind in English; unhappily they were not very poetical. He was imitated by Ambrose Philips, but then the tide of Cowley-Pindarism rose again and swept the reform away. The attempts of Gilbert West (1703–1756) to explain the prosody of Pindar (1749) inspired Gray to write his “Progress of Poesy” (1754) and “The Bard” (1756). Collins, meanwhile, had in 1747 published a collection of odes devised in the Aeolian or Lesbian manner. The odes of Mason and Akenside were more correctly Pindaric, but frigid and formal. The odes of Wordsworth, Coleridge and Tennyson are entirely irregular. Shelley desired to revive the pure manner of the Greeks, but he understood the principle of the form so little that he began his noble “Ode to Naples” with two epodes, passed on to two strophes, and then indulged in four successive antistrophes. Coventry Patmore, in 1868, printed a volume of Odes, which he afterwards enlarged; these were irregularly built up on a musical system, the exact consistency of which is not always apparent. Finally Swinburne, although some of his odes, like those of Keats, are really elaborate lyrics, written in a succession of stanzas identical in form, has cultivated the Greek form also, and some of his political odes follow very closely the type of Bacchylides and Pindar.

 ODENKIRCHEN, a town of Germany, in the Prussian Rhine province, 21 m. by rail S.W. of Düsseldorf, and at the junction of lines to Munich, Gladbach and Stolberg. Pop. (1905) 16,808. It has a Roman Catholic church, an Evangelical one, a synagogue and several schools. Its principal industries are spinning, weaving, tanning and dyeing. Odenkirchen became a town in 1856.

 ODENSE, a city of Denmark, the chief town of the amt (county) of its name, which forms the northern part of the island of Fünen (Fyen). Pop. (1901) 40,138. The city lies 4 m. from Odense Fjord on the Odense Aa, the main portion on the north side of the stream, and the industrial Albani quarter on the south side. It has a station on the railway route between Copenhagen and Jutland and Schleswig-Holstein via Korsör. A canal, 15 to 21 ft. deep, gives access to the town from the fjord. St Canute’s cathedral, formerly connected with the great Benedictine monastery of the same name, is one of the largest and finest buildings of its kind in Denmark. It is constructed of brick in a pure Gothic style. Originally dating from 1081–1093, it was rebuilt in the 13th century. Under the altar lies Canute (Knud), the patron saint of Denmark, who intended to dispute with William of Normandy the possession of England, but was slain in an insurrection at Odense in 1086; Kings John and Christian II. are also buried within the walls. Our Lady’s church, built in the 13th century and restored in 1851–1852 and again in 1864, contains a carved altarpiece (16th century) by Claus Berg of Lübeck. Odense Castle was erected by Frederick IV., who died there in 1730. In Albani are tanneries, iron-foundries and machine-shops. Exports, mostly agricultural produce (butter, bacon, eggs); imports, iron, petroleum, coal, yarn and timber.

Odense, or Odinsey, originally Odinsoe, i.e. Odin’s island, is one of the oldest cities of Denmark. St Canute’s shrine was a great resort of pilgrims throughout the middle ages. In the 16th century the town was the meeting-place of several parliaments, and down to 1805 it was the seat of the provincial assembly of Fünen.

 ODENWALD, a wooded mountainous region of Germany, almost entirely in the grand duchy of Hesse, with small portions in Bavaria and Baden. It stretches between the Neckar and the Main, and is some 50 m. long by 20 to 30 broad. Its highest points are the Katzenbuckel (2057 ft.), the Neunkircher Höhe (1985 ft.) and the Krähberg (1965 ft.). The wooded heights overlooking the Bergstrasse are studded with castles and medieval ruins, some of which are associated with some of the most memorable adventures of German tradition. Among them are Rodenstein, the reputed home of the wild huntsman, and near Grasellenbach, the spot where Siegfried of the Nibelungenlied is said to have been slain.

 ODER (Lat. Viadua; Slavonic, Vjodr), a river of Germany, rises in Austria on the Odergebirge in the Moravian tableland at a height of 1950 ft. above the sea, and 14 m. to the east of Olmütz. From its source to its mouth in the Baltic it has a total length of 560 m., of which 480 m. are navigable for barges, and it drains an area of 43,300 sq. m. The first 45 m. of its course lie within Moravia; for the next 15 m. it forms the frontier between Prussian and Austrian Silesia, while the remaining 500 m. belong to Prussia, where it traverses the provinces of Silesia, Brandenburg and Pomerania. It flows at first towards the south-east, but on quitting Austria turns towards the north-west, maintaining this direction as far as Frankfort-on-Oder, beyond which its general course is nearly due north. As far as the frontier the Oder flows through a well-defined valley, but, after passing through the gap between the Moravian mountains, and the Carpathians and entering the Silesian plain, its valley is wide and shallow and its banks generally low. In its lower course it is divided into numerous branches, forming many islands. The main channel follows the left side of the valley and finally expands into the Pommersches, or Stettiner Haff, which is connected with the sea by three arms, the Peene, the Swine and the Dievenow, forming the islands of Usedom and Wollin. The Swine, in the middle, is the main channel for navigation. The chief tributaries of the Oder on the left bank are the Oppa, Glatzer Neisse, Katzbach, Bober and Lausitzer Neisse; on the right bank the Malapane, Bartsch and Warthe. Of these the only one of importance for navigation is the Warthe, which through the Netze is brought into communication with the Vistula. The Oder is also connected by canals with the Havel and the Spree. The most important towns on its banks are Ratibor, Oppeln, Brieg, Breslau, Glogau, Frankfort, Cüstrin and Stettin, with the seaport of Swinemünde at its mouth. Glogau, Cüstrin and Swinemünde are strongly fortified.

The earliest important undertaking with a view of improving the waterway was due to the initiative of Frederick the Great, who recommended the diversion of the river into a new and straight channel in the swampy tract of land known as the Oderbruch, near Cüstrin. The work was carried out in the years 1746–1753, a large tract of marshland being brought under cultivation, a considerable detour cut off, and the main stream successfully confined to the canal, 12 m. in length, which is known as the New Oder. The river at present begins to be navigable for barges at Ratibor, where it is about 100 ft. wide, and for larger vessels at Breslau, and great exertions are made by the government to deepen and keep open the channel, which still shows a strong tendency to choke itself with sand in certain places. The alterations made of late years consist of three systems of works:—(1) The canalization of the main stream (4 m.) at Breslau, and from the confluence of the Glatzer Neisse to the mouth of the Klodnitz canal, a distance of over 50 m. These engineering works were completed in 1896. (2) In 1887–1891 the Oder-Spree canal was made to connect the two rivers named. The canal leaves the Oder at Fürstenberg (132 m. above its mouth) at an altitude of 93 ft., and after 15 m. enters the Friedrich-Wilhelm canal (134 ft.). After coinciding with this for 7 m., it makes another cut of 5 m. to the Spree at Fürstenwalde (126 ft.). Then it follows the Spree for 12 m., and at Gross Tränke (121 ft.) passes out and goes to Lake Seddin (106 ft.), 15 m. (3) The deepening and regulation of the mouth and lower course of the stream, consisting of the Kaiserfahrt, 3 m. long, affording a waterway between the Stettiner Haff and the river Swine for the largest ocean-going vessels; a new cut, 41 m. long, from Vietzig on the Stettiner Haff to Wollin Island; the Parnitz-Dunzig and Dunzig-Oder canals, together 1 m. long.