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PT020
[Typescript Poem] “The Land Within”

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Mary Webb. “The Land Within.” “Mrs. Webb / 5 Grove Cottages / The Grove / Hampstead / N.W.3.” in ink (and with an illegible address in N.2. crossed out) on verso of last leaf. Typescript poem, three leaves, the first 10″ x 6¼″, the second and third leaves 10″ x 8″, off-white wove paper loosely stitched together (with blue thread) at upper-left corner. Forty-six lines in two stanzas, eight corrections. Signed at the bottom: “Mary Webb.” An autobiographical poem, “The Land Within” is a sad consideration of Webb’s life and her failed relationship with Henry: “This is a land of forests, and of meres / Stirless and deep, replenished with my tears. / Here the pine harps, and many voices moan / Within the cedar, crying, ‘Lone! Alone!’ . . . And that brown woodman, where and whence was he— / That woodman, with the eyes that dazzled me / Far more than rosy fire or golden gleams / Of April? O, in dreams, my soul! In dreams.”