"[Ode on the Pleasure Arising from Vicissitude]"

• Archive Work ID: poems.oopv
• Uniform Title: "[Ode on the Pleasure Arising from Vicissitude]" [e-text]
• First Line: Now the golden Morn aloft
• Language: English
• First Published: 1775
• References: Starr/Hendrickson (eds.), Complete Poems (1966), 100-103; Lonsdale (ed.), Poems (1969), 201-207
• Summary: Written probably in 1754 or 1755. First printed privately in 1774. First published, in two versions, among the notes to the poems, entitled "Ode, On the Pleasure arising from Vicissitude", and as "Ode" in Mason's Memoirs (1775), 78-81 (with Mason's additions) and 236-237 (ll. 1-48 only) respectively.

1 Manuscript:

• • Archive MS ID: mss.0111 (Source: EAD/XML)
  • Title: [?]
  • Date: [17??]
  • Physical Description: [?] pages, 250 mm x 200 mm; transcript in the hand of James Beattie
  • Language: English
  • Location: MS 30/44 ("Copies of the poems of Thomas Gray"), Historic Collections, Special Libraries and Archives, King's College, University of Aberdeen Library, Aberdeen, UK <https://www.abdn.ac.uk/library/>
  • References: Smith (ed.), Index (1989), 88; Ellner, June, "Re: MS 30/44, James Beattie papers". E-mail to the editor, 20 December 2006
  • Contents: Transcript in the hand of James Beattie, annotated in his hand "A note which I find in a Memorandum-book of Mr Gray's 1754 will best explain the intended plan of this beautiful Lyrical fragment, and will give the poetical reader how he meant to conclude it. "Contrast between the winter past and coming spring – Joy owing to that vicissitude – many who never feel that delight – Sloth - Envy - Ambition – how much happier the Rustick who feels it though he knows not how.""