We made an exciting discovery last weekend while clearing out a cupboard in the family home - a box of letters, mostly to Marianne from her father (who left Hilda and the family home when Marianne was about 5, and eventually moved to as-was-then Rhodesia), but also a few letters from Mr Nash, which give more insight into why he wrote poems for Marianne, and how he suggested she interpret them. Below is one of these letters - read it and have a little romantic sob - we did... And here's a silly photo of us - me in my mum's 1960s glasses, and my sister with a book we remember reading as children, that we'd been given by Mummy from her collection of 'old books', or maybe just from a 1980s jumble sale!
Marianne,
I offer these fresh poems and hope you will see in them the small addition in power I seem to see in them.
Of their contents.... you see how things are with me, for I have reached the depths. I know there is nothing to be done about it.
I hope they will not cause you any disturbances. Try to think of them as from someone you would like to have them from and I am sure they will then give you pleasure.
I ask only one little thing... do give me just a word or two about them. You are my only audience, remember, and no-one likes to play to empty stalls... although, God, help me, I am not acting
I hope you like your book.
Cyril
And, playing catch-up with Mr Nash's constant flow of poems, here are two more, both dated 14th July 1959.
If I could span the years
And cross time's bridge of sighs,
My shyness I would place within,
Your own sweet hands, as potter's clay,
Shaping myself to all your will.
And even now, when time's great tide
Runs strongly in between,
I set my sail to your far distant shore
Safe in the searchlight of your eyes,
Where I may serve till time itself is still.
14th July, 1959
If music be the voice of angels
Since earthly meaning it transcends,
And if the language of true love
Sweet music is, why then,
I have the key to all my bitter tears.
For now I may possess myself in peace
And love you, making willing sacrifice
Of all time's seeming pleasantries,
Save this, that I must see you now
For angels' music feeds on heavenly views.
14th July, 1959
