"The Bard. A Pindaric Ode"

• Archive Work ID: poems.bapo
• Uniform Title: "The Bard. A Pindaric Ode" [e-text]
• First Line: 'Ruin seize thee, ruthless king!
• Language: English
• First Published: 1757
• References: Starr/Hendrickson (eds.), Complete Poems (1966), 18-24; Lonsdale (ed.), Poems (1969), 177-200
• Summary: Begun late in 1754 and initially abandoned by August 1755, then taken up again, completed and revised, between May and August 1757. Gray sent the earlier parts of the poem in letters to Thomas Wharton, dated 6 August 1755 (ll. 1-56), and to Richard Stonhewer, dated 21 August 1755 (ll. 63-100), the latter part (ll. 111-144) to William Mason, dated [24 or 31] May 1757. First published, as "Ode II." in Odes by Mr. Gray (1757), 12-21.

1 Manuscript:

• • Archive MS ID: mss.0221 (Source: EAD/XML)
  • Title: "The Bard. A Pindaric Ode"
  • Date: 1780[?]
  • Physical Description: 16 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, 47-62, 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 "The Bard. A Pindaric Ode" (p. 47) ("Ode. VI." [p. 49]). The poem, which has numbered stanzas and includes the "Argument" and the "Advertisement" as a footnote to the half-title as well as Gray's notes to ll. 5, 11, 13, 14, 35, 38, 47, 54, 57, 59, 64, 67, 71, 77, 83, 87, 89, 90, 91, 93, 99, 109, 110, 117, 121, 128, 131, 133, and additional annotations to ll. 70 ("Richard II.") and 75 ("Henry IV."), 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.