References: Starr/Hendrickson (eds.), Complete Poems (1966), 138-140 (with English prose translation); Lonsdale (ed.), Poems (1969), 306-308 (with English prose translation)
Summary: Written at Cambridge when Gray was about to join Richard West (Favonius) at the Inner Temple, where they intended to study law together. First published, untitled but referred to in a footnote as a "Sapphic Ode", in Mason'sMemoirs (1775), section I, letter no. XIV. Mason is the only source for this letter, dated June 1738, in which Gray originally sent the poem to West. MS translation into English by Thomas Wharton.
Alternate Form:
Microfilm copy available in Poetic Commonplace Books and Manuscripts of Thomas Gray, 1716-1771, from Pembroke College, Cambridge (1999), reel one
References: Smith (ed.), Index (1989), item GrT 1, 79; Poetic C. B., Pembroke College (1999), 21; Martin, Chronologie (1931), 136
Contents: Autograph fair copy, annotated "Cambridge. June, 1738" in Gray's Commonplace Book, vol. I, split over two pages: p. 53 (ll. 1-40) and p. 90 (ll. 41-52).
Surrogates: Digital facsimile [JPEG] from original MS available online.
Contents: Transcript in an unidentified neat and legible hand, entitled "Ode on Mr. West's leaving the University" (p. 1) ("Ode. I." [p. 3]). The poem is part of a section called "Latin Pieces", which is separately paginated and has its own table of contents (p. 24), in a volume entitled Gray's Poems. The book carries the bookplate of Gray's friend and biographer William Mason.