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"Ode for Music"

    • Archive Work ID: poems.ocmu
    • Uniform Title: "Ode for Music" [e-text]
    • First Line: "Hence, avaunt, ('tis holy ground)
    • Language: English
    • First Published: 1769
    • References: Starr/Hendrickson (eds.), Complete Poems (1966), 48-51; Lonsdale (ed.), Poems (1969), 264-274
    • Summary: Written at Cambridge between 6 February and 20 April 1769 for the installation of the Duke of Grafton as Chancellor of the University, 1 July 1769. First published, anonymously, as Ode performed in the Senate-House at Cambridge... (1769), a copy of the first edition with an autograph note is at the Henry W. And Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature, The New York Public Library, New York, NY, USA.

    4 Manuscripts:

      • Archive MS ID: mss.0099 (Source: EAD/XML)
      • Title: "Ode, for musick"
      • Date: [1769?]
      • Physical Description: 4 pages; autograph fair copy (unsigned)
      • Language: English
      • Location: Houghton b MS Eng 870, 52B, The Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA <http://library.harvard.edu/>
      • Alternate Form: Photocopy in RP2338, Manuscripts Collection, The British Library, London, UK
      • References: Smith (ed.), Index (1989), item GrT 85, 87; Sutton (ed.), Location Register (1995), 414; Munby (ed.), Sale Catalogues (1971), Evans sale (27-29 November 1845), lot 603(?), 9; Nelson (ed.), Union First Line Index. Mar. 2010. Folger Shakespeare Library. 19 March 2010. <http://firstlines.folger.edu/detail.php?id=36724>
      • Contents: Autograph fair copy (unsigned), here entitled "Ode, for musick", lot 125 in an unidentified sale.

      • Archive MS ID: mss.0100 (Source: EAD/XML)
      • Title: "Ode"
      • Date: [1769?]
      • Physical Description: 4 pages; autograph fair copy
      • Language: English
      • Location: Modern (Unbound) Manuscripts, Box 7a, Folder 18, Robert H. Taylor Collection of English and American Literature, Princeton University Library, Princeton, NJ, USA <http://rbsc.princeton.edu/>
      • References: Smith (ed.), Index (1989), item GrT 86, 87; Munby (ed.), Sale Catalogues (1971), Evans sale (27-29 November 1845), lot 603, 9; Catalogue of a Sotheby's sale (30 June 1984), lot 483, facsimile in catalogue; Rich, Margaret Sherry, "Please forward". E-mail to Mark Farrell, forwarded to the editor, 26 June 2006; Farrell, Mark, "Re: [Fwd: Please forward]". E-mail to the editor, 28 June 2006
      • Contents: Autograph fair copy, here entitled "Ode". A hand-written, nineteenth-century saleroom ticket, which refers to the manuscript as "Lot 603", is stuck onto the last page with sealing wax.

      • Archive MS ID: mss.0222 (Source: EAD/XML)
      • Title: "An Irregular Ode for Music"
      • Date: 1780[?]
      • Physical Description: 11 pages, 180 mm x 110 mm; transcript in an unidentified neat and legible hand on Whatman paper
      • Language: English
      • Location: MS Add. 439, "Poems" section, 63-73, The Archives, York Minster Library & Archives, York, UK <https://yorkminster.org/treasures-and-collections.html>
      • Contents: Transcript in an unidentified neat and legible hand, entitled "An Irregular Ode for Music" (p. 63) ("Ode. VII" [p. 65]). The poem, which has numbered stanzas (I.-VIII.) and several annotations to the half-title page, based on information on the title page of the 1769 edition, and to ll. 39, 41, 42, 43, 45, 66, 70, and 84, is part of a section called "Poems", which is separately paginated and has its own table of contents (p. 129), in a volume entitled Gray's Poems. The book carries the bookplate of Gray's friend and biographer William Mason.


Contents

Manuscripts