[Peter Levi, poet and Jesuit priest.] Holograph collection of nine poems, titled 'The Element', with signed autograph note from Dom Moraes explaining their background.

14pp., 4to. In exercise book with green printed wraps. Good, on lightly-aged and worn paper. The first page carries the title 'The Element', with the words 'Peter Levi S.J. | Nov. '57-Jan. '58' in the top right-hand corner. With occasional light corrections. The second poem ('Out of shaking') has the directions: 'No title & no commas', and the last but one ('Unfinished Elegy'), which is the longest at 4pp., is annotated: 'There ought to be three parts or possibly four. I can't write the last part.' First lines, with titles where present following in brackets: 'The lads of course arrived too late'; 'Out of shaking'; 'Death in the heart'; 'This heart, twin magnet of the mind' ('Emblem'); 'Five o'clock ploughs its pale yellow furrows' ('Dream of a hermitage'); 'Midwater afternoons, a single line' ('Image of an afternoon'); 'Like strangers who casually press'; 'Neglected Eldoradoes of the mind' ('Unfinished Elegy. | For R. S.'); 'What if the world were a horrible mad fit'. Moraes' note, on a sheet of grey paper (1p., 4to) reads: 'Father Peter Levi S.J. has published two books of verse. The poems in this notebook which he gave me some years back comprise 12 of the 30 in his second book "WATER, ROCK & SAND." | His first book "THE GRAVEL PONDS" (Deutsch) was a Poetry Book Society Choice in 1960 & the second won the Lamont Prize in America. | Dom Moraes | 10th. June 1963'.