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PT033
[Typescript Poem] “Heaven's Tower”

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Mary Webb. “Heaven’s Tower.” Typescript poem, two leaves, 8¾″ x 5½″, white laid watermarked paper; “Mary Webb” and “Lyth Hill” in ink at bottom of second leaf (both crossed out). Thirty-two lines in two stanzas, one ink correction. The poem contrasts the joy of lovers within the tower with the melancholy of souls that never found a mate. The poem ends by reminding the reader of inevitable sadness and death. “While they murmur, mouth on mouth, / The grievous bell they do not hear, / Every toll a silver tear; / Nor dream they that the mystic, tall / Tree whose leaves like shadows fall / And fill the tower with whispering breath, / Bears the purple fruit of death.”