After giving some illustrations of the impression produced upon
the imagination by a study of Pindar's odes, the writer proceeds
with his characterization, in the following language: "He who
has watched a sunset attended by the passing of a thunder-storm
in the outskirts of the Alps--who has seen the distant ranges
of the mountains alternately obscured by cloud and blazing with
the concentrated brightness of the sinking sun, while drifting
scuds of hail and rain, tawny with sunlight, glistening with
broken rainbows, clothe peak and precipice and forest in the
golden veil of flame-irradiated vapor--he who has heard the thunder
bellow in the thwarting folds of hills, and watched the lightning,
like a snakes tongue, flicker at intervals amid gloom and glory
--knows, in Nature's language, what Pindar teaches with the voice
of Art. It is only by a metaphor like this that any attempt to
realize the Sturm and Drang of Pindar's style can be communicated.
As an artist he combines the strong flight of the eagle, the
irresistible force of the torrent, the richness of Greek wine,
and the majestic pageantry of Nature in one of her sublimer
moods." [Footnote: "The Greek Poets." First Series, pp. 171, 174.]

Pindar, as we have seen, was compared to an eagle, because of
the daring flights and lofty character of his poetry--a simile
which has been beautifully expressed in the following lines by
GRAY:

The pride and ample pinion
That the Theban eagle bare,
Sailing with supreme dominion,
Through the azure deeps of air.