ST. LOUIS — A previously unpublished poem by Tennessee Williams, described as having been "written out of absolute, complete despair," has been discovered in his blue test booklet from a college course in 1937.

The 17-line poem, titled "Blue Song," has been acquired by Washington University in St. Louis, where Williams, as a student in his mid-20s, plummeted into depression before fleeing the city he said he despised.

The poem, penciled in an exam booklet for his failing Greek class at the university, speaks to "a loss of identity, and absolute, complete despair," said Henry Schvey, the Washington University professor and Williams scholar who found the poem and test booklet last March at Faulkner House Books in New Orleans.

In the poem, originally titled "Sad Song" and still bearing his eraser marks, Williams wrote: "If you should meet me upon a street do not question me for I can tell you only my name and the name of the town I was born in."

Weeks before he found "Blue Song," Schvey, chair of Washington's performing arts department, had directed the world premiere of "Me, Vashya" — a one-act play Williams had written in 1937 for an English class competition — for an international symposium on Williams' early career.

Williams' earlier play sketches, read aloud by his English professor, were snippets of what would become "The Glass Menagerie," and were "by far the best in the class," author A.E. Hotchner ("Papa Hemingway," "King of the Hill") recalled in an interview last year. He studied with Williams at Washington in 1936-37. But his classmates snickered and giggled at "Me, Vashya."

Schvey visited New Orleans last year to deliver a paper at the annual Tennessee Williams Scholars' Conference. He stopped by Faulkner House Books and asked the owner if he had any Williams literary ephemera — paper remnants, postcards, scraps of paper — that weren't on display. Schvey was handed a stack of photographs of Williams and his various lovers, and what turned out to be his Greek test booklet. It was signed Th. Williams for the young Thomas Lanier Williams. In 1939, he changed his name to Tennessee.

The blue book had Williams' translations from Greek to English and vice versa, with test grades and "at the very back, written in pencil, just as the exam had been, was 'Blue Song,' " Schvey said. He immediately arranged for the school to acquire the find — which he said is significant — for several thousand dollars. He's in the process of having the poem published.