Complete Works of James Joyce (329 page)
Read Complete Works of James Joyce Online
Authors: Unknown
Rain on Rahoon falls softly, softly falling,
Where my dark lover lies.
Sad is his voice that calls me, sadly calling,
At grey moonrise.
Love, hear thou
How soft, how sad his voice is ever calling,
Ever unanswered and the dark rain falling,
Then as now.
Dark too our hearts, O love, shall lie and cold
As his sad heart has lain
Under the moongrey nettles, the black mould
And muttering rain.
A birdless heaven, seadusk, one lone star
Piercing the west,
As thou, fond heart, love’s time, so faint, so far,
Rememberest.
The clear young eyes’ soft look, the candid brow,
The fragrant hair,
Falling as through the silence falleth now
Dusk of the air.
Why then, remembering those shy
Sweet lures, repine
When the dear love she yielded with a sigh
Was all but thine?
Wind whines and whines the shingle,
The crazy pierstakes groan;
A senile sea numbers each single
Slimesilvered stone.
From whining wind and colder
Grey sea I wrap him warm
And touch his trembling fineboned shoulder
And boyish arm.
Around us fear, descending
Darkness of fear above
And in my heart how deep unending
Ache of love!
Simpl
e
s
O bella bionda,
Sei come l’onda!
Of cool sweet dew and radiance mild
The moon a web of silence weaves
In the still garden where a child
Gathers the simple salad leaves.
A moondew stars her hanging hair
And moonlight kisses her young brow
And, gathering, she sings an air:
Fair as the wave is, fair, art thou!
Be mine, I pray, a waxen ear
To shield me from her childish croon
And mine a shielded heart for her
Who gathers simples of the moon.
Flo
o
d
Goldbrown upon the sated flood
The rockvine clusters lift and sway.
Vast wings above the lambent waters brood
Of sullen day.
A waste of waters ruthlessly
Sways and uplifts its weedy mane
Where brooding day stares down upon the sea
In dull disdain.
Uplift and sway, O golden vine,
Your clustered fruits to love’s full flood,
Lambent and vast and ruthless as is thine
Incertitude!
Nightpie
c
e
Gaunt in gloom
The pale stars their torches
Enshrouded wave.
Ghostfires from heaven’s far verges faint illume
Arches on soaring arches,
Night’s sindark nave.
Seraphim
The lost hosts awaken
To service till
In moonless gloom each lapses, muted, dim
Raised when she has and shaken
Her thurible.
And long and loud
To night’s nave upsoaring
A starknell tolls
As the bleak incense surges, cloud on cloud,
Voidward from the adoring
Waste of souls.
Alo
n
e
The noon’s greygolden meshes make
All night a veil,
The shorelamps in the sleeping lake
Laburnum tendrils trail.
The sly reeds whisper to the night
A name — her name-
And all my soul is a delight,
A swoon of shame.
A Memory of the Players in a Mirror at Midnig
h
t
They mouth love’s language. Gnash
The thirteen teeth
Your lean jaws grin with. Lash
Your itch and quailing, nude greed of the flesh.
Love’s breath in you is stale, worded or sung,
As sour as cat’s breath,
Harsh of tongue.
This grey that stares
Lies not, stark skin and bone.
Leave greasy lips their kissing. None
Will choose her what you see to mouth upon.
Dire hunger holds his hour.
Pluck forth your heart, saltblood, a fruit of tears.
Pluck and devour!
The eyes that mock me sign the way
Whereto I pass at eve of day.
Grey way whose violet signals are
The trysting and the twining star.
Ah star of evil! star of pain!
Highhearted youth comes not again
Nor old heart’s wisdom yet to know
The signs that mock me as I go.
A Pray
e
r
Again!
Come, give, yield all your strength to me!
From far a low word breathes on the breaking brain
Its cruel calm, submission’s misery,
Gentling her awe as to a soul predestined.
Cease, silent love! My doom!
Blind me with your dark nearness, O have mercy, beloved enemy of my will!
I dare not withstand the cold touch that I dread.
Draw from me still
My slow life! Bend deeper on me, threatening head,
Proud by my downfall, remembering, pitying
Him who is, him who was!
Again!
Together, folded by the night, they lay on earth. I hear
From far her low word breathe on my breaking brain.
Come!
I yield. Bend deeper upon me! I am here.
Subduer, do not leave me! Only joy, only anguish,
Take me, save me, soothe me, O spare me!
There was an old lady named Gregory
There was a young priest named Delaney
There is a weird poet called Russell
There once was a Celtic librarian
O, there are two brothers, the Fays
C’era una volta, una bella bambina
The flower I gave rejected lies
There is a young gallant named Sax
There’s a monarch who knows no repose
There’s a donor of lavish largesse
There is a clean climber called Sykes
There once was a lounger named Stephen
Now let awhile my messmates be
There once was an author named Wells
A Goldschmidt swam in a Kriegsverein
There’s an anthropoid consul called Bennett
A bard once in lakelapt Sirmione
The Right Heart in the Wrong Place
The Right Man in the Wrong Place
The press and the public misled me
Jimmy Joyce, Jimmy Joyce, where have you been
I never thought a fountain pen
I saw at Miss Beach’s when midday was shining
Rouen is the rainiest place getting
There’s a coughmixture scopolamine
To Mrs H. G. who complained that her visitors kept late hours
Humptydump Dublin squeaks through his norse
As I was going to Joyce Saint James’
A Portrait of the Artist as an Ancient Mariner
There’s a genial young poetriarch Euge
Have you heard of one Humpty Dumpty
Goodbye, Zurich, I must leave you
Aiutami dunque, O Musa, nitidissima Calligraphia
There’s a maevusmarked maggot called Murphy