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The Complete Works of   JAMES JOYCE

Page 235

by James Joyce


  XVI

  O cool is the valley now

  And there, love, will we go

  For many a choir is singing now

  Where Love did sometime go.

  And hear you not the thrushes calling,

  Calling us away?

  O cool and pleasant is the valley

  And there, love, will we stay.

  XVII

  Because your voice was at my side

  I gave him pain,

  Because within my hand I held

  Your hand again.

  There is no word nor any sign

  Can make amend —

  He is a stranger to me now

  Who was my friend.

  XVIII

  O Sweetheart, hear you

  Your lover’s tale;

  A man shall have sorrow

  When friends him fail.

  For he shall know then

  Friends be untrue

  And a little ashes

  Their words come to.

  But one unto him

  Will softly move

  And softly woo him

  In ways of love.

  His hand is under

  Her smooth round breast;

  So he who has sorrow

  Shall have rest.

  XIX

  Be not sad because all men

  Prefer a lying clamour before you:

  Sweetheart, be at peace again —

  Can they dishonour you?

  They are sadder than all tears;

  Their lives ascend as a continual sigh.

  Proudly answer to their tears:

  As they deny, deny.

  XX

  In the dark pine-wood

  I would we lay,

  In deep cool shadow

  At noon of day.

  How sweet to lie there,

  Sweet to kiss,

  Where the great pine-forest

  Enaisled is!

  Thy kiss descending

  Sweeter were

  With a soft tumult

  Of thy hair.

  O unto the pine-wood

  At noon of day

  Come with me now,

  Sweet love, away.

  XXI

  He who hath glory lost, nor hath

  Found any soul to fellow his,

  Among his foes in scorn and wrath

  Holding to ancient nobleness,

  That high unconsortable one —

  His love is his companion.

  XXII

  Of that so sweet imprisonment

  My soul, dearest, is fain —

  Soft arms that woo me to relent

  And woo me to detain.

  Ah, could they ever hold me there

  Gladly were I a prisoner!

  Dearest, through interwoven arms

  By love made tremulous,

  That night allures me where alarms

  Nowise may trouble us;

  But sleep to dreamier sleep be wed

  Where soul with soul lies prisoned.

  XXIII

  This heart that flutters near my heart

  My hope and all my riches is,

  Unhappy when we draw apart

  And happy between kiss and kiss:

  My hope and all my riches — yes! —

  And all my happiness.

  For there, as in some mossy nest

  The wrens will divers treasures keep,

  I laid those treasures I possessed

  Ere that mine eyes had learned to weep.

  Shall we not be as wise as they

  Though love live but a day?

  XXIV

  Silently she’s combing,

  Combing her long hair

  Silently and graciously,

  With many a pretty air.

  The sun is in the willow leaves

  And on the dapplled grass,

  And still she’s combing her long hair

  Before the looking-glass.

  I pray you, cease to comb out,

  Comb out your long hair,

  For I have heard of witchery

  Under a pretty air,

  That makes as one thing to the lover

  Staying and going hence,

  All fair, with many a pretty air

  And many a negligence.

  XXV

  Lightly come or lightly go:

  Though thy heart presage thee woe,

  Vales and many a wasted sun,

  Oread let thy laughter run,

  Till the irreverent mountain air

  Ripple all thy flying hair.

  Lightly, lightly — ever so:

  Clouds that wrap the vales below

  At the hour of evenstar

  Lowliest attendants are;

  Love and laughter song-confessed

  When the heart is heaviest.

  XXVI

  Thou leanest to the shell of night,

  Dear lady, a divining ear.

  In that soft choiring of delight

  What sound hath made thy heart to fear?

  Seemed it of rivers rushing forth

  From the grey deserts of the north?

  That mood of thine

  Is his, if thou but scan it well,

  Who a mad tale bequeaths to us

  At ghosting hour conjurable —

  And all for some strange name he read

  In Purchas or in Holinshed.

  XXVII

  Though I thy Mithridates were,

  Framed to defy the poison-dart,

  Yet must thou fold me unaware

  To know the rapture of thy heart,

  And I but render and confess

  The malice of thy tenderness.

  For elegant and antique phrase,

  Dearest, my lips wax all too wise;

  Nor have I known a love whose praise

  Our piping poets solemnize,

  Neither a love where may not be

  Ever so little falsity.

  XXVIII

  Gentle lady, do not sing

  Sad songs about the end of love;

  Lay aside sadness and sing

  How love that passes is enough.

  Sing about the long deep sleep

  Of lovers that are dead, and how

  In the grave all love shall sleep:

  Love is aweary now.

  XXIX

  Dear heart, why will you use me so?

  Dear eyes that gently me upbraid,

  Still are you beautiful — but O,

  How is your beauty raimented!

  Through the clear mirror of your eyes,

  Through the soft sigh of kiss to kiss,

  Desolate winds assail with cries

  The shadowy garden where love is.

  And soon shall love dissolved be

  When over us the wild winds blow —

  But you, dear love, too dear to me,

  Alas! why will you use me so?

  XXX

  Love came to us in time gone by

  When one at twilight shyly played

  And one in fear was standing nigh —

  For Love at first is all afraid.

  We were grave lovers. Love is past

  That had his sweet hours many a one;

  Welcome to us now at the last

  The ways that we shall go upon.

  XXXI

  O, it was out by Donnycarney

  When the bat flew from tree to tree

  My love and I did walk together;

  And sweet were the words she said to me.

  Along with us the summer wind

  Went murmuring — O, happily! —

  But softer than the breath of summer

  Was the kiss she gave to me.

  XXXII

  Rain has fallen all the day.

  O come among the laden trees:

  The leaves lie thick upon the way

  Of memories.

  Staying a little by the way

  Of memories shall we depart.

  Come, my b
eloved, where I may

  Speak to your heart.

  XXXIII

  Now, O now, in this brown land

  Where Love did so sweet music make

  We two shall wander, hand in hand,

  Forbearing for old friendship’ sake,

  Nor grieve because our love was gay

  Which now is ended in this way.

  A rogue in red and yellow dress

  Is knocking, knocking at the tree;

  And all around our loneliness

  The wind is whistling merrily.

  The leaves — they do not sigh at all

  When the year takes them in the fall.

  Now, O now, we hear no more

  The vilanelle and roundelay!

  Yet will we kiss, sweetheart, before

  We take sad leave at close of day.

  Grieve not, sweetheart, for anything —

  The year, the year is gathering.

  XXXIV

  Sleep now, O sleep now,

  O you unquiet heart!

  A voice crying “Sleep now”

  Is heard in my heart.

  The voice of the winter

  Is heard at the door.

  O sleep, for the winter

  Is crying “Sleep no more.”

  My kiss will give peace now

  And quiet to your heart —

  Sleep on in peace now,

  O you unquiet heart!

  XXXV

  All day I hear the noise of waters

  Making moan,

  Sad as the sea-bird is when, going

  Forth alone,

  He hears the winds cry to the water’s

  Monotone.

  The grey winds, the cold winds are blowing

  Where I go.

  I hear the noise of many waters

  Far below.

  All day, all night, I hear them flowing

  To and fro.

  XXXVI

  I hear an army charging upon the land,

  And the thunder of horses plunging, foam about their knees:

  Arrogant, in black armour, behind them stand,

  Disdaining the reins, with fluttering ships, the charioteers.

  They cry unto the night their battle-name:

  I moan in sleep when I hear afar their whirling laughter.

  They cleave the gloom of dreams, a blinding flame,

  Clanging, clanging upon the heart as upon an anvil.

  They come shaking in triumph their long, green hair:

  They come out of the sea and run shouting by the shore.

  My heart, have you no wisdom thus to despair?

  My love, my love, my love, why have you left me alone?

  POMES PENYEACH

  The thirteen short poems in this collection were written over a twenty-year period from 1904 to 1924, and originally published in 1927. The title is a play on “poems” and “pommes” (French for apples) which are offered at “a penny each”. It was the custom for Irish tradespeople to offer their customers a “tilly” or extra serving. The first poem of Pomes Penyeach is entitled “Tilly” and represents the bonus offering of this penny-a-poem collection.

  The first edition

  CONTENTS

  Tilly

  Watching the Needleboats at San Sabba

  A Flower Given to My Daughter

  She Weeps over Rahoon

  Tutto è sciolto

  On the Beach at Fontana

  Simples

  Flood

  Nightpiece

  Alone

  A Memory of the Players in a Mirror at Midnight

  Bahnhofstrasse

  A Prayer

  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!

  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.

  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.

  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.

  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?

  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!

  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.

  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 is thine

  Incertitude!

  Nightpiece

  Gaunt in gloom

  The pale st
ars 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.

  Alone

  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 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.

 

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