5/2/1959 - They met in the City...

So here is the first of the dated poems that we found - written exactly 55 years ago today, 5th February. Cyril writes of a collision of hands as two bookshop customers linger over two different books in his shop - Boccacio's 'Il Decamerone', and William Ralph Inge's 'Lay Thoughts of a Dean'. One book featuring tales of love and adventure, the other presumably gloomy religious philosophy. A reflection on the two different characters?

To M.M.

(Part of the 'urge' and more of me!)

They met in the City -

In Cullum Street - that's slung

Between old Leadenhall

And Billingsgate odiferous both odorous,

In a bookshop (antiquarian)

Where the dust lay thick alike

On 'Il Decamerone'

And 'Lay Thoughts of a Dean' -

No, not quite alike, for youthful

Hands had fingered quite a lot

Boccacio, with saucy pictures in.

In fact, his hand stretched out

(His conscience panicked at the last)

For grim old Inge's severe piece

Just as she, much bolder (grip on life!)

Decided on Decameron.

In that swift clash of hands

The heavens fell, and all

The Nudes of Gill, and harems bright

With all that charms a young man's sight

Disappeared - and gathered in

A small pale face, with lovely eyes

Of grey (or were they blue?)

All dressed in green (unlucky hue!).

And she? The instant moved for quick instinct

And all was done.... until they came to bed

At last, and there the body's rapture ends.

For all desire was caught and held

In that quick moment of eternity

When in a bookshop (antiquarian)

In Cullum Street - that's in the City -

Two met to grasp Boccacio

And petered out with "Lay Thoughts of a Dean"

5/2/1959

 A Tale from the Decameron, a painting by John William Waterhouse