"This must not be"

So, after Marianne's rejection of Mr Nash's heartfelt poetry to her, the individually dated poems in swift succession appear to have stopped. This poem in the remaining collection is undated, but reading it in conjunction with those dated previously, it seems that this may have been the next in sequence. Typed up on official shop notepaper of the time - oh to be able to call Mansion House 2665, and get an answer...

Cyril writes here of the futility of tears, despite his grief at her rejection. And unknowingly dedicates this poem to those of us who are reading his work today; "some future eyes". Wasted tears fall from mine...

x

So when you said 'this must not be',
I took my grief and buried it in words;
For tears, beyond their first relieving flood,
Affront the inward man with their futility,
And lovely things, pursued as memories,
Might quicken old delights and newer pains.

If then, some future eyes, still dim
With wasted tears, should read this page,
Know that the senses do not err
If they will take with unperturbed gratitude
The gifts which undemanding nature brings:
And if they must remember, let this be
Recorded words of present ecstacies.
-- But these are idle self deceiving words,
As any man who ever loved will know.