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Handwritten poem by a young Stuart Sutcliffe, signed “Sutcliffe” at the head, three pages on three leaves, with additional verse on the reverse of each, 4.5 x 7.5, no date (circa 1955). Sutcliffe wrote this original poem, titled “Lovers Lament,” while a pupil at Prescot Grammar School. The poem begins: “One day, we met, so brief / My heart, was filled with love, and, disbelief. / But I’m not a Romeo, though, I / Fell, deeper, deeper, until I could cry.” Later he implores: “Can naught be done. Oh God, Tell / Before, I too crack subdued, beneath your spell. / My minds distorted, Release me from this Hell?” The poem closes: “Your return. To the damned, be my all.” The poem is written in a neat, flowing hand with a handful of his own strikethrough corrections, and the leaves are consecutively numbered in the upper right corners.
The reverse sides carry more verse in Sutcliffe’s hand. These are looser working drafts, heavily reworked with cross-outs and revisions, and two of the pages are headed as continuations of “Lovers Lament.” Among the lines: “Yet fretting waves of timeless sea / Breaks and forms like hissing tide,” and “Light shining through this frigid sighing heart, warms the icing touch of love.” In fine condition, with small circular stains at the corners. Accompanied by a certificate of authenticity from Tracks.
Sutcliffe attended Prescot Grammar School from 1951 until 1956, when he entered Liverpool College of Art at 16. There he met John Lennon, who later persuaded him to join the band as its bassist in 1960. Written just a few years before he took the stage with the Beatles in Hamburg, this earnest, heart-on-sleeve lament offers a remarkably intimate look at the creative instincts of the young artist.
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