THE LOST WORLD with a Complete MANUSCRIPT of His Poem "The Player Piano," the Poet's Last Poem
New York & London: The Macmillan Company & Collier-Macmillan Limited, (1965). First Edition. Hardcover. This collection of poems is INSCRIBED and SIGNED by the poet on the half-title page "For Harry and Elizabeth/with all best wishes from/Randall and Mary." This is likely Harry Ford and his first wife, Elizabeth. Ford was a designer of books and dustwrappers as well as being a poetry editor at Atheneum and Alfred Knopf who worked closely with Jarrell. On the front pastedown and the facing front endpaper, Jarrell has also written out the complete poem, "The Player Piano," consisting of 7 five-line stanzas with several word changes from the published version. According to Jarrell's bibliographer, Stuart Wright, this poem was Jarrell's last completed poem. It was first published posthumously in his 1969 COMPLETE POEMS. A signed typescript for the poem exists in Wright's papers housed at East Carolina University where it is annotated by Wright: "Last completed poem -- published posthumously." Here are the last three stanzas:
Here are Mother and Father in a photograph,
Father's holding me. They both look so young.
I'm so much older than they are. Look at them,
Two babies with their baby. I don't blame you,
You weren't old enough to know any better;
If I could I'd go back, sit down by you both,
And sign our true armistice: you weren't to blame.
I shut my eyes and there's our living room.
The piano's playing something by Chopin,
And Mother and Father and their little girl
Listen. Look, the keys go down by themselves!
I go over, holding my hands out, play I play --
If only, somehow, I had learned to live!
The three of us sit watching, as my waltz
Plays itself out a half-inch from my fingers. Fine in a close to Fine dustwrapper. Item #022009
Price: $5,000.00