Summary: Written before October 1761 at the request of Gray's friend Henrietta Speed. Walpole transcribed and sent it in a letter to Caroline Campbell, Countess of Ailesbury, 28 November 1761. First published, beginning "With beauty, with pleasure surrounded, to languish", in Pope's Works (1797), ed. Joseph Warton, vol. II, 285n. Entitled "Amatory Lines" by Mitford and Northup, Bibliography (1917), 61.
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 123, 91; Poetic C. B., Pembroke College (1999), 30
Contents: Transcript in the hand of William Mason, here entitled "Song" and annotated "From an interlind & corrected Copy", in Gray's Commonplace Book, vol. III, 1105.
Surrogates: Digital facsimile [JPEG] from original MS available online.