An ode is often address “to” a person, place, thing, or idea. Ode to an Oak Tree A pindaric ode starts with two stanzas with the same rhyme scheme. (A) Old friend of weathered trunk and burnished leaf, (B) Scorched giant with strong arms caressing sky, (B) Guardian of echoes of days long gone by, (A) Your great bulk now touched by time’s light-fingered thief. (B) When I as a child looked at you, a height so staggering struck my eyes (B) You seemed eternal in your reach, sheltering branches over our small cries. It concludes with a final stanza with a different rhyme scheme. (C) Now I am aged, and so are you, (C) Stooped in stature, greyed in hue. (D) Your limbs are shrunken, dried and snapped. (E) Your roots are slowly bleeding sap. (C) But dear old friend, I’ll love you true (C) Till into dust we’ll fade -- together, anew.