Wednesday 28 May 2014

8, 11, 15 May 1959 - Missing Marianne

The poems to Marianne from Mr Nash continued to flow in May, but it seems that her visits to the bookshop off Fenchurch Street in London were few and far between, as Cyril talks in the following poems of missing seeing her, and being reminded of her through music, busy High Streets and good weather, while she unlikely thinks of him in return. Woe... 

How strange and strong the spell
Of music on the ear;
And stranger still that I should hear
With quickened heart the swell,
The ebb and flow of Bach, the dear
Intricacies of sound, of melody
When you (alas, in fantasy)
Appear to be so near.
Yet I have never known you say
That Bach was all in all to you
Or if to Chopin you are true
Or if indeed prefer cacaphony
To strains of symphony, and jazz
To all that old Debussy has.
How then should I so surely be
Aware of your strong presence when
I give myself, and mental wherewithal
To sweetest ecstacies of madrigal?
And how tis then (and only then)
You are more near to me
Than when I see you here, elusively?
8/5/1959
I have put this down but think it could be improved upon with a little more time to gather my thoughts (if any) but it is all true!

You are always in my thoughts;
Even the busy High Street Saturday
With jostling bodies filling shops can be
A wilderness of loneliness, and I
Am filled, alas, with homesickness for you,
Who are remoter than the furthest star
And only seen when you decree.
Here, I look beyond all possibility
Among these many varied faces
Knowing that you may never come this way
And never think of me.

11/5/1959





All through this lovely week in May
The sun has shone with gaiety again
And yet, such is the power of your
Sweet personality, that missing you,
The days have been too long, and I
Have turned for consolation to cool night
Seeking to still my turbulence of mind.
and there I saw your beauty mirrored
At the midnight hour, for tracing their loveliness
Against the skies, giant cedars sang
Their praises to the distant stars;
And I did see - O could you then have
Been with me - the crescent moon
Sail as a coracle their seas of floating fronds
Propelled by fairy oars to Arcady,
And I had wished that we could be aboard.
But, no. forever must I dwell among
Their dim ecclesiastic shades of mauve
Waiting the rising of the sun,
And hope that you will shine on me again.
15/5/1959
No time to retype this legibly!

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