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PM034
[Manuscript Poem] “Their Being Is To Be Perceived”

  1. 00018564_0001
  2. 00018564_0002

Mary Webb. “‘Their being is to be perceived,’” with an illegible pencil annotation to title. Manuscript poem, one leaf, 10½″ x 8″, off-white laid paper. Recto: twenty lines in five stanzas plus another seven or eight lines (with substantial corrections) written sideways in the left-hand margin, black ink. Verso: twenty-six lines in three stanzas, plus another eight lines in two stanzas (all with substantial corrections), written sideways in the left-hand margin, blue ink. The five stanzas in fair-copy manuscript are of one of Webb’s last poems, later to be titled “Farewell to Beauty.” The entire verso and two stanzas on the recto margins of “Farewell to Beauty” (all with substantial alterations) are the final verses to the poem “Colomen.” This manuscript offers a rare opportunity to see the preliminary composition of an important poem by Webb.