top of page

Into the Public Domain in 2023 - James Joyce Poems from Pomes Penyeach


TILLY


He travels after a winter sun,


Urging the cattle along a cold red road,


Calling to them, a voice they know,


He drives his beasts above Cabra.


The voice tells them home is warm.


They moo and make brute music with their


hoofs.


He drives them with a flowering branch before


him,


Smoke pluming their foreheads.


Boor, bond of the herd,


Tonight stretch full by the fire!


I bleed by the black stream


For my torn bough!


Dublin 1904.


WATCHING THE NEEDLEBOATS AT SAN SABBA


I heard their young hearts crying


Loveward above the glancing oar


And heard the prairie grasses sighing:


No more, return no more!


O hearts, O sighing grasses,


Vainly your loveblown bannerets mourn!


No more will the wild wind that passes


Return, no more return.


Trieste 1912.



A FLOWER GIVEN TO MY DAUGHTER


Frail the white rose and frail are


Her hands that gave


Whose soul is sere and paler


Than time’s wan wave.


Rosefrail and fair–yet frailest


A wonder wild


In gentle eyes thou veilest,


My blueveined child.


Trieste 1913.



SHE WEEPS OVER RAHOON


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.


Trieste 1913.



TUTTO È SCIOLTO


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?


Trieste 1914.



ON THE BEACH AT FONTANA


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!


Trieste 1914.



SIMPLES


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.


Trieste 1915.



FLOOD


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 in thine


Incertitude!


Trieste 1915.



NIGHTPIECE


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 insense surges, cloud on cloud,


Voidward from the adoring


Waste of souls.


Trieste 1915.


And long and loud,


To night’s nave upsoaring,


A starknell tolls


As the bleak insense surges, cloud on cloud,


Voidward from the adoring


Waste of souls.


Trieste 1915.



A MEMORY OF THE PLAYERS IN A MIRROR AT


MIDNIGHT.


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!


Zurich 1917.


BAHNHOFSTRASSE

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.

Zurich 1918.

A PRAYER

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 wordbreathe 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

Paris 1924.





2 views0 comments
bottom of page