Introduction: The man at the gate -- The pressure of sense in some odes of Jonson and Drayton -- Milton's light-harnessed ode -- "Alexander's feast" and the tyranny of music -- Thomas Gray's feather's cincture -- The tented sky in the odes of Collins -- Wordsworth's severe imitations -- The wedding guest in "Dejection" -- Shelley and the celebration of power -- Voice in the leaves: three odes of Keats -- "To autumn" and the sound of being -- Postscript: The ode after "Autumn".