Related Verses

1) Draft of sonnet four from "The Broken Home." Pencil, notebook paper.

2) Verso of 1. "If only one['s] could travel / Withouta destination; Love without an object." Pencil, notebook paper.

3) "Door by door, story by story." Ink, draft paper.

4)  "Door by door, story by story." Ink, draft paper. Verso of 3.

 

5) "  "[And there are whole days you have] / Transfigured." Ink, pencil, draft paper.

 

6) In air-blue, air-clear water." Ink and pencil, notebook paper.

 

7)  "This is the tale / of a life." Ink and pencil, notebook paper. Verso of 6.

 

8) "Thus father time." Ink, notebook paper.

9) "Lost friends, past trips." Pencil, draft paper. One sketch.

 

10) . Draft letter to Howard Moss about Merrill's new poem. Pencil, draft paper. Verso of 9

 

11) "How to go forth clad in such [shoddy] cheap words?" Ink, verso of a postcard. Seven sketches.

Merrill included these manuscripts in the file of "The Thousand and Second Night" papers he sent to Washington University Libraries. Some of these manuscripts are more clearly related than others to the completed poem. For example, Manuscript 1 is a draft from "The Broken Home." Manuscript 8 seems related to Merrill's work on his poem "Time," which also appears in Nights and Days; and the city descriptions in 3 and 4 seem related to Merrill's descriptions of Istanbul in the completed poem. 

The concept of  "love without an object" in Manuscripts 2 and 9 appears in many mystical traditions. For example, this line from a poem by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi, a Persian poet and Sufi master (b. 1207): “A love with no object is a true love." Manuscript 2 contains a note in the right margin: "1002nd Night." Manuscript 9 contains lines ("Lost friends . . .  I bless you") that were worked into the "Love. Warmth." poem. Manuscript 10 contains a draft letter to Harold Moss about the publication of the poem in The New Yorker.