AUTOGRAPH AND TYPESCRIPT 'WORKING DRAFTS OF SMALL PORTION OF WALES VISITATION', c. 60 lines including those deleted, typescript with numerous deletions and some autograph revisions and corrections preserving reconsidered readings, autograph title at the end and on verso of the second leaf where the note indicates that the poem was 'for Round House Reading', 2 pages, quarto, [London] dated 6 August 1967

There is no imperfection on the budded mountain
Foxgloves raise green buds, mauve bells droop doubled down the stem
each flower Buddha-eye
I lay down on the hillside
& Mixing my beard with the wet hair of the mountainside
smiling the moist ground the brown vagina harmless
tasting the violet hair of the thistle, sweetness
lifted my head and groaned...

'Wales Visitation' was inspired by a visit to Wales in July 1967 and an LSD experience. The printed version of the poem begins: 'White fog lifting & falling on mountain-brow / Trees moving in rivers of wind...' This draft, relating to the second half of the work, differs significantly from the published version.

PROVENANCE: Gekoski.

REFERENCE: Allen Ginsberg, Collected Poems 1947-1980, 1985.