21/4/1959 The Cherry Tree

To M.M.

The Cherry Tree

All time and space are pregnant
Only with the pulse of personality;
And your sweet presence felt
Made this young cherry tree, blossomed
White in spring, a thing of joy.

I saw you in your bridal dress
With laces past all human finery
And there, beneath it all,
The wonder and the loveliness
Of your perfect symmetry

And through my joy came memories
Of words of mine, so jaunty, brave and fine,
Now fallen flat and lost
In the dark uncompromising
Silence that besets my soul.

For from this silence came the truth
Too long denied, and even now to be
Abandoned 'ere its birth;
But now I know, beauty and truth
Are joy; sometimes bitter pain.

21st April, 1959

I hope you will not find this difficult....
but I dare not otherwise....and you must
discover for yourself.

Cyril's reference to 'words of mine' - I'm not sure whether he's talking about something he'd said to Marianne, or possibly his own wedding vows. Thoughts...?

NB: Creative licence for the photographing of this poem. No cherry blossom in my garden, so this is apple. You didn't notice, right? :-)

17/4/1959 Cyril writes a letter to explain



Friday 17th April, 1959

My dear Marianne,

I hope you will forgive the liberty I am taking in writing this short letter to you......but I feel I ought to reassure you about certain things, for I am quite certain you must be wondering not a little just recently.

Will you believe me when I say that I am not making improper advances to you, nor shall I ever do so. I wish only to have the privilege of knowing you and I hope I shall never give you the slightest cause to think ill of me. I cannot conceal (nor would I want to) my admiration for you and I will always, I know, have feelings about you which cannot in the nature of circumstances be expressed. In this connection, please believe me when I tell you I am quite happy at home....and that I do not (nor ever have done) go around seeking out beautiful young people!

I owe you a deep debt of gratitude for enriching my life to an extent which I never thought possible and I hope anything I have said will not prejudice that relationship.

I asked you if I might write to you, for the sole purpose of discussing in private things which I know to be of mutual interest, but I respect your judgment on the matter....although I could not resist a little leg-pull!

What a serious letter! But I hope it will clear the air......and take away any concern you may have in accepting the little Skira's.

Yours most sincerely (how inadequate!)
Cyril Nash


I can't find any reference of where the word 'Skira' comes from. Google just assumes I've mistyped Shakira - how rude...

Mr Nash's letter seems honest and heartfelt, while acknowledging that Marianne was probably fairly overwhelmed by his attention via poetry. His statement that he had a happy home life seems likely to have been reassuring.

Laurence Worms, who took ownership of the business in the early 1970s when Hugh Jones and Cyril Nash retired, has told me in correspondence by email that Mr Nash was a private man with regard to his home life, but that he knew Cyril was married, to Eileen, and some genealogical research has added that he had a daughter and son, both around the same age as Marianne at the time - early 20s. Laurence shared the below:

Both he and Hugh had been in insurance before 1946 (although dabbling in buying and selling books in their spare time for some years before that). In mid life they took rather a bold decision, both married and with children, to give up their safe and pensionable careers, to open the shop, and take up the chancy business of second-hand bookselling, thinking that in the immediate post-war it was now or never.

I’m not sure that Eileen Nash ever entirely forgave him.  That was Hugh’s theory, anyway. 

I wonder how the letter was received - whether it put Marianne's mind at rest regarding her feeling able to visit the shop for her primary and sole purpose of buying antiquarian books to add to her collection.

She definitely continued to visit, and Cyril definitely continued to write poems for her...

11/4/1959 I heard you laugh

Today's poem was another particular favourite of Cyril's, marked with his double tick, a number 3 in the top left hand corner, and a form of his signature.

I heard you laugh,
The low soft sound of muted
Strings of harps,
And my rash heart leapt high
In wild arpeggios;
And those firm hands
Did rest and dampen down
These vibrant strings,
And then I heard you say
"I heard something?"
And then, O then
I heard you laugh.

11/4/1959

27 Eccleston Square, London

Talking to my father the other day, he told me about when Marianne moved out of her flat in Eccleston Square, London, into his house in Kent in 1971 prior to their impending November wedding. He turned up with a car full of tea chests to help move her possessions. And the packing began. A double-door cupboard in the living room was opened, revealing books stacked from floor to ceiling. Daddy was rather overwhelmed, but started taking them from the shelves to pack. And Mummy coyly said 'err, there's another layer behind...'. And another, and another, apparently :-) Several thousand books later, and an incredibly full car, the job was finally done...

3, 6 & 8 April 1959 - a triplet of poems

I'm struggling to keep up with Cyril's odes to Marianne! So I'm posting three in one post, and have berated myself for falling behind.

This one from 3 April 1959 is marked with a double tick from Cyril, denoting it was a particular favourite of his. He also marked it with the number 5 in the top left hand corner - which indicates the order in which he wanted his favourites to be collected together.

You are most beautiful;
And if my words do run away with me,
As you have said,
Then let them run to where they will
So they proclaim
To all who have not seen,
You are most beautiful.

You are most beautiful;
And if the pool that is my mind
Shall fail to mirror all I see,
Then shall I plunge more deeply still
Although it leads me to despair
And even words may fly from me,
For I so surely know
You are most beautiful.

3/4/1959


The next poem, just 3 days later, reads as follows:

To M. M.

If I could paint you as I see you now
With all your fresh young loveliness revealed,
All future generations would, I vow,
Be grateful for your beauty unconcealed;
But there remains my poor ungainly song
Which you despise, to fix forever charms
Which fairest Helen would not envy long,
For in you dwells that secret fire which warms
The hearts of men to her sweet memory,
And adds to all things lovely further grace
While re-enkindling hope for all to see
That beauty never dies and has no space;
The sweetest Palestrina madrigal
Might praise, yet not yourself recall

6/4/1959


On 8th April 1959, Cyril typed up a 'Five Part Madrigal to Hope', where he seems to be writing about his adoration for Marianne running deeper than may have been made apparent or acknowledged.

When you are near, music of madrigals
Fills my ears, intoned in quiet measure,
Where each distinct and lovely line forestalls
The moments in your presence, full of pleasure,
And talk that's mostly innocent at times
But takes a sharper poignancy that hurts
As hidden thought and strong emotion climbs
And thrives on ground that's fertile in outskirts.
Your voice and mine, your thoughts and mine
And under all, the voice of destiny
Insistent, never wavering design
Threading its diapasoned way to be,
When you and I in thought and mood are one
And universe resolves in unison.

8th April, 1959

On a random but somewhat related note, I was walking down Charing Cross Road in London on Sunday. It has a small raft of antiquarian bookshops halfway up it - presumably there were many more along this road back in the day -  and it struck me that those remaining may be reminiscent of Jon Ash in the 1950s.

I also went to see where 84 Charing Cross Road was - the address of Marks & Co, the bookshop made famous in the book of the same name which documented 20 years of fond correspondence between Helen Hanff and Frank Doel, a buyer at the bookshop. Disappointingly, it is now a branch of Pizza Hut, and the ground floor level completely replaced by a modern shop frontage. Boo...

84 Charing Cross Road - now a Pizza Hut

Henry Pordes Books
58-60 Charing Cross Road

18/3/1959 Full Circle

Full Circle

If you could look into my heart
You would yourself there see,
For all my life is now a veil
Through which your lambent beauty shines;
My thoughts, my words, my deeds
Are yours though still they mock me
With apparent ownership.
But you may not discover your known you
In me, for here are neither thoughts
Nor deeds of yours, yet still, 'tis you
The sweet essential you I know,
Though how I know I cannot tell,
And you are inaccessible!
But in my heart you truly see
The me that's really me, for all
My written words are all of me, and you,
And I am here for you to do with as you will.

18/3/1959

It seems that Cyril crossed out the last line of this poem. Not happy with it? But it must've been passed into Marianne's possession regardless.