Add MS 48217

EARLY POEMS BY DYLAN MARLAIS THOMAS (b. 1914, d. 1953); circ. 1930-1933. Mostly typewritten (see below). All were printed, with an indication of most variant readings, in R. Maud, Poet in the Making: the Notebooks of Dylan Thomas, 1968. Most of the poems appear in the four notebooks in the Lockwood Library of the State University of New York at Buffalo which were used by Maud. The notebooks, in which dates of composition are usually recorded, cover the following periods:-(1) 27 Apr. - 9 Dec. 1930;-(2) Dec. 1930-2 July 1932;-(3) 1 Feb.-16 Aug. 1933;-(4) 17 Aug. 1933-30 Apr. 1934. The majority of the poems were also printed in The Poems of Dylan Thomas, ed. Daniel Jenkyn Jones, 1971. For other Dylan Thomas manuscripts see Add. MSS. 52612, 52903. The contents are:-- (1) Eighteen poems corresponding with texts in Notebook 1 (see Maud, op. cit.), numbered 39, 4, 10, 14 (imperfect, lacking the final fourteen lines as printed), 15, 19, 22, 24, 25, 26 (imperfect, lacking the final twenty-three lines as printed), 28, 31, 33, 35, 37, 38, 41, 42; 6 May-9 Dec. 1930. These numbers are in most cases marked in pencil on the poems. Typewritten, mostly with autogr. (ink) additions and corrections. The final leaf of 'Tether the first thought if you will' (no. 41, f. 28) is misbound at f. 2. 'How shall the animal' (no. 42, ff. 29-30) was later rewritten as 'How shall my animal', printed in Jones, op. cit., pp. 134-135. ff. 1-2, 8-30.

(2) Twelve poems corresponding with texts in Notebook 2, printed in Maud, pp. 104-109, 115-119, 133, 139-140, 151-152, 154, 158-160; 19 Dec. 1930-1 July 1932. Autograph (ff. 41, 42), typewritten with autogr. (pencil) additions and corrections (ff. 3-7), and typewritten. 'The Morning, Space for Leda' (ff. 6-7) is repeated, with a different version of line 30, at f. 66. The poem, 'Were that enough, enough to ease the pain' (f. 64), was later used as the last two stanzas of 'Out of the sighs', printed in Jones, pp. 31-32. 'Being but men we walked into the trees' (f. 75) is apparently incomplete, lacking the final eight lines as printed in Maud, p. 154. ff. 3-7, 41, 42, 64-68, 71-73, 75, 79.

(3) Poems corresponding with texts in Notebook 3, printed in Maud, pp. 136-137, 180-181, 195-196, 217-219; Feb.-July 1933. Viz.:-(a) 'No food suffices but the food of death'. Autogr. First printed in The Adelphi, vii, 1934, pp. 399-400. ff. 37-40;-(b) 'Pass through twelve stages, reach the fifth'. Two versions, with slight variations, autogr. (ff. 43-45) and typewritten (ff. 46-47);-(c) 'Make me a mask to shut from razor glances'. Typewritten. For a revised version, 'O make me a mask', see Jones, p. 133. ff. 48-49;-

(d) 'After the funeral mule praises, brays'. Typewritten. For a revised version see Jones, pp. 136-137. f. 50.

(4) Poems corresponding with texts in Notebook 4, printed in Maud, pp. 231-233, 239-240, 257-260; 6 Sept.-13 Dec. 1933. Typewritten. ff. 31-36. Viz:-(a) 'Before I knocked and flesh let enter'. First printed, with the omission of stanzas 5 and 9, in 18 Poems, 1934, pp. 15-16. ff. 31-32;-

(b) 'My hero bares his nerves along my wrist'. First printed in 18 Poems, p. 18. f. 33;-(c) 'Light breaks where no sun shines'. First printed in The Listener, xi, 14 Mar. 1934, p. 462. f. 34;-(d) 'I fellowed sleep who kissed between the brains'. A version, rewritten in combination with the poem printed in Maud, pp. 248-249, was first published in 18 Poems, p. 31. f. 35;-

(e) 'See, says the lime, my wicked milks'. f. 36.

(5) Nine poems by Thomas not included in the Buffalo notebooks; circ. 1932-1933. Typewritten. Printed in Maud, pp. 310, 342-348. The poem, 'Especially when the November wind' (ff. 51-52) is evidently an early version of 'Especially when the October wind', first printed in The Listener, xii, 24 Oct. 1934, p. 691. A longer version of 'First I knew the lamb on knocking knees' (f. 53) was printed from Notebook 3 in Maud, pp. 197-198. ff. 51-53, 56, 57, 69, 70, 74, 76-78.

(6) Eight poems claimed by Daniel Jones (op. cit., p. xv) as joint works by himself and Thomas; circ. 1930-1933. Typewritten. Manuscripts of these are in the Library of the University of Texas. Printed in Maud, pp. 337-340. ff. 54, 55, 58-63. Paper; ff. 79. Folio. Circ. 1930-1933. For an account of the acquisition of the poems by the donor in 1933 and 1934, see Maud, op. cit., pp. 38-39. Presented by Trevor Hughes, Esq.