THOMAS DYLAN: (1914-1953) The working manuscript of 'To Others Than You'

THOMAS DYLAN: (1914-1953) The working manuscript of 'To Others Than You'

THOMAS DYLAN: (1914-1953) Welsh poet. An exceptional autograph manuscript, unsigned, of the poem To Others Than You, three pages (separate leaves, written to the rectos only), 8vo, Laugharne, 5th June 1939. The working manuscript, with a number of corrections and deletions, comprises several versions of the poem and offers a unique insight into Thomas's creative process before deciding on the final form of the poem. The drafts are simply entitled Poem and the first variant begins with the line 'Friend my enemy I call you out', which Thomas retains in the final version, although continues with several significant differences, in part, 'You with a dud bad dud coin in your socket/ Try not to pass it palm it/ Who tries to palm its gleam on me the glint on me/ were once my golden friend…..whose/ your pursed eye has a bad coin in it/ My enemies, my friends, my friends/ (refrain:) My friends are enemies on stilts’ and also includes several lines which did not appear in the final text (‘You with a swan-enamouring voice/ that calls but dogs to heel’). The second page of the manuscript shows that Thomas had almost reached the final version of the short poem, however he still reorganises some lines, indicated with an arrow and parenthesis, to ensure balance and rhythm, and to the third page Thomas, having satisfied himself with the work, writes the poem out in a version identical to that which would appear in print (although still without the title To Others Than You; beneath his title Poem Thomas crosses through one line, ‘My friends are enemies’, which may have been, in the spirit of the poem, an incipit) –

Friend by enemy I call you out.

You with a bad coin in your socket,
You my friend there with a winning air
Who palmed the lie on me when you looked
Brassily at my shyest secret,
Enticed with twinkling bits of the eye
Till the sweet tooth of my love bit dry,
Rasped at last, and I stumbled and sucked,
Whom now I conjure to stand as thief
In the memory worked by mirrors,
With unforgettably smiling act,
Quickness of hand in the velvet glove
And my whole heart under your hammer,
Were once such a creature, so gay and frank
A desireless familiar
I never thought to utter or think
While you displaced a truth in the air,

That though I loved them for their faults
As much as for their good,
My friends were enemies on stilts
With their heads in a cunning cloud.

A wonderful and rare autograph manuscript. Some very light, extremely minor age wear, minimal areas of paper loss to the upper left edges of each page and the final page with a slight paperclip rust stain to the upper right corner. VG

To Others Than You was published in 1946 as part of the volume of poems by Dylan Thomas entitled Death and Entrances. One of the best-known collections of Thomas’s poems, many of the pieces dealt with the effects of World War II which had ended a year earlier.