Summary: Begun not earlier than September 1751 and completed by December 1754 when Gray sent the poem in a letter to Thomas Wharton, dated 26 December 1754. First published, as "Ode." in Odes by Mr. Gray (1757), 5.
References: Parks, Stephen et al. (ed.), Osborn Collection First-Line Index. New Haven: Beinecke Library, Yale University, 2005, 101, item A1906; Nelson (ed.), Union First Line Index. Mar. 2010. Folger Shakespeare Library. 16 April 2010. <http://firstlines.folger.edu/detail.php?id=10642>
Contents: Transcript in the hand of John Freeman Milward Dovaston, entitled "Ode", in his autograph Select, and Miscellaneous Poems, Scraps, Mottos &c, 1773 and later, a Commonplace book of verse by Dovaston and others.