I walked down Milsom Street today

A few weeks ago I visited Bath, for an afternoon's mooch around the Christmas market there. Walking along Milsom Street, I thought of Mr Nash as one of his earlier poems had referenced a visit he'd made to Bath in 1959 - and to this street in particular - and it was though-provoking to be walking in his footsteps some 50 years later.

Here are a few photos from my visit:

Milsom Street signage - as Mr Nash would've seen it too (minus Kiehl's!)

Bath Abbey

Burton Street and festive lighting

And here's an undated poem from Mr Nash. Wandering the narrow streets of Bath, I found a shop called The Tasting Room, which sold a wide range of wines and spirits. Including a bottle I hadn't seen for many years - since I was a teenager in fact, and Punt e Mes was my mother's favourite tipple. So I bought a bottle, and gave it a try when I got home. Verdict? It's grim! It's a vermouth, but very bitter, with a herbal/orangey aftertaste. The man in the shop suggested it was worth trying with gin and Campari but I'm not convinced that will improve it for me any more!

On with Mr Nash's words...

Give me leave to love
And I'll not listen
For think you that I love
And brook condition?
Or think you I will cease
Without possession?
Love me or love me not
I love without remission.

"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.

22/10/1959 ...when you bade me stop

Another beautiful and wistfully romantic poem from Mr Nash to Marianne today. Nothing unusual in that, other than a pencilled footnote on it. Read on...

Written before Oct 22nd - when you bade me stop

And do you think Mr Nash did stop...?

19/10/1959 Autumn leaves fall at your feet

Let my thoughts as autumn leaves
Fall at your feet and spend themselves
In golden thriftlessness, that you enjoy
Their rustling canticles of praise,
Then, glancing at my nakedness, you'll say
He gave his all because he must, for me.

19th October, 1959

7/10/1959 This is the summer's end

From this poem from Mr Nash dated 7th October 1959, it seems that Marianne is still not visiting his bookshop. I wonder how he is getting the poems to her...

This is the summer's end
With golden days like gossamer
Now fled before rude winds which bend
All things, save memory, upon themselves.

When shall I see you stand
Again with your proud lissom grace
Mirrored against the sun's demand
Yet like a pearl that adds to beauty's breast?

This is the summer's end
When austere winds do rudely touch
On truth and dreams, yet leave for friend
Sweet memories, and hope for distant spring.

7th October, 1959

20/9/1959 September leaves

Thanks to Mr Nash, I now know that 'sear' also means 'withered'... And here's a strange little tale of leaves. I went into the garden last night, armed with my iPhone torch as it was pitch black out there, to find some autumnal leaves. I wanted a maple leaf-shape, but there aren't any such trees in my garden - just a few fruit trees, and several dreaded leylandii. But there it was, at the end of the garden, the perfect leaf. Just the one!

So tenderly,
So trustfully
The darling buds of May *
Appear.

So sear
September leaves display
Glad memories,
Sad phantasies

20-9-1959

*quite deliberately stolen!

17/9/1959 Seven long weeks...

So it seems that Marianne's visits to Jon Ash bookshop on Cullum Street in the City of London had come to an abrupt halt according to the poem Mr Nash wrote below on 17 September 1959, and he clearly felt that impact deeply. But it didn't stop his adoration or poetry-writing...

Reading again the verses I have made for you
I live once more the moments' ecstacy
When I did see you as you were, and are,
- Who could but worship where such beauty dwells?
And now, in retrospect I see, when silence
Held me in her sifting self-absorbed embrace
For seven long weeks, where every moment
Still was filled with your sweet presence felt,
That to myself I have been true
And all my words which, wounding as they went
From me, have laid me bare
Yet must I praise, for there's my destiny.

17/9/1959