Complete Works of James Joyce
Page 236
Dire hunger holds his hour.
Pluck forth your heart, saltblood, a fruit of tears.
Pluck and devour!
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.
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 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!
LATER POETRY
CONTENTS
Ecce Puer
G. O’Donnell
There was an old lady named Gregory
There was a young priest named Delaney
There is a weird poet called Russell
A holy Hegelian Kettle
John Eglinton, my Jo, John
Have you heard of the admiral
There once was a Celtic librarian
Dear, I am asking a favour
O, there are two brothers, the Fays
The Sorrow of Love
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
Lament for the Yeomen
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
Solomon
D. L. G.
A Goldschmidt swam in a Kriegsverein
Dooleysprudence
There’s an anthropoid consul called Bennett
New Tipperary
To Budgeon, raughty tinker
A bard once in lakelapt Sirmione
The Right Heart in the Wrong Place
The Right Man in the Wrong Place
O, Mr Poe
Bis Dat Qui Cito Dat
And I shall have no peace
Who is Sylvia, what is she
The press and the public misled me
Jimmy Joyce, Jimmy Joyce, where have you been
Fréderic’s Duck
I never thought a fountain pen
Rosy Brook he bought a book
I saw at Miss Beach’s when midday was shining
Bran! Bran! the baker’s ban!
P. J. T.
Post Ulixem Scriptum
The clinic was a patched one
Is it dreadfully necessary
Rouen is the rainiest place getting
There’s a coughmixture scopolamine
Troppa Grazia, Sant’ Antonio!
For he’s a jolly queer fellow
Scheveningen, 1927
Pour Ulysse IX
Crossing to the Coast
Hue’s Hue?
Buried Alive
Father O’Ford
Buy a book in brown paper
To Mrs H. G. who complained that her visitors kept late hours
Humptydump Dublin squeaks through his norse
Stephen’s Green
Les Verts de Jacques
As I was going to Joyce Saint James’
Pour la Rime Seulement
A Portrait of the Artist as an Ancient Mariner
Pennipomes Twoguineaseach
There’s a genial young poetriarch Euge
Have you heard of one Humpty Dumpty
Epilogue to Ibsen’s ‘Ghosts’
Goodbye, Zurich, I must leave you
Le bon repos
Aiutami dunque, O Musa, nitidissima Calligraphia
Come-all-ye
There’s a maevusmarked maggot called Murphy
Ecce Puer
Of the dark past
A child is born.
With joy and grief
My heart is torn.
Calm in his cradle
The living lies.
May love and mercy
Unclose his eyes!
Young life is breathed
On the glass;
The world that was not
Comes to pass.
A child is sleeping:
An old man gone.
O, father forsaken,
Forgive your son!
G. O’Donnell
Poor little Georgie, the son of a lackey,
Famous for ‘murphies’, spirits, and ‘baccy
Renowned all around for a feathery head
Which had a tendency to become red.
His genius was such that all men used to stare,
His appearance was that of a bull at a fair.
The pride of Kilmainham, the joy of the class,
A moony, a loony, an idiot, an ass.
Drumcondra’s production, and by the same rule,
The prince of all pot-boys, a regular fool.
All hail to the beauteous, the lovely, all hail
And hail to his residence in Portland gaol.
There was an old lady named Gregory
There was an old lady named Gregory
Who said: ‘Come, all ye poets in beggary.’
But she found her imprudence
When hundreds of students
Cried: ‘We’re in that noble category.’
There was a young priest named Delaney
There was a young priest named Delaney
Who said to the girls, ‘Nota bene,
’Twould tempt the archbishop
The way that you swish up
Your skirts when the weather is rainy.’
There is a weird poet called Russell
There is a weird poet called Russell
Who wouldn’t eat even a mussel
When chased by an oyster
He ran to a cloister
Away from the beef and the bustle.
The cloister he called the ‘Hermetic’
I found it a fine diuretic
A most energetic
And mental emetic
Heretic, prophetic, ascetic.
A holy Hegelian Kettle
A holy Hegelian Kettle
Has faith which we cannot unsettle
If no one abused it
He might have reduced it
But now he is quite on his mettle.
John Eglinton, my Jo, John
John Eglinton, my Jo, John,
When last had you a — ?
I fear ye canna go, John,
Although ye are na spent.
O begin to fel’ John,
Ye canna mak’ it flow,
And even if it swell, John
The lassies wadna know.
John Eglinton, my Jo, John,
I dinna like to say
Of course ye must have sinned, John
When ye were young and gay
It canna be remorse, John,
That keeps ye fra a ride
Your virtue is a farce, John,
Ye cardna if ye tried
Have you heard of
the admiral
Have you heard of the admiral, Togo,
Who said to the girls, it is no go;
But when we come back,
Then each jolly Jack -
Yókogó! Yókogó! Yókogó!’
There once was a Celtic librarian
There once was a Celtic librarian
Whose essays were voted Spencerian,
His name is Magee
But it seems that to me
He’s a flavour that’s more Presbyterian.
Dear, I am asking a favour
Dear, I am asking a favour
Little enough
This, that thou shouldst entype me
This powdery puff
I had no heart for your troubling,
Dearest, did I
Only possess a typewriter or
Money to buy
Thine image, dear, rosily litten
Ever shall be
Thereafter that thou hast typewritten
These things for me —
O, there are two brothers, the Fays
O, there are two brothers, the Fays,
Who are excellent players of plays,
And, needless to mention, all
Most unconventional,
Filling the world with amaze.
But I angered these brothers, the Fays,
Whose ways are conventional ways,
For I lay in my urine
While ladies so pure in
White petticoats ravished my gaze.
The Sorrow of Love
If any told the blue ones that
mountain-footed move,
They would bend down and with batons,
belabour my love.
C’era una volta, una bella bambina
C’era una volta, una bella bambina
Che si chiamava Lucia
Dormiva durante il giorno
Dormiva durante la notte
Perché non sapeva camminare
Perché non sapeva camminare
Dormiva durante il giorno
Dormiva durante la notte.
The flower I gave rejected lies
The flower I gave rejected lies.
Sad is my lot for all to see.
Humiliation burns my eyes.
The Grace of God abandons me.
As Alberic sweet love forswore
The power of cursed gold to wield
So you, who lust for metal ore,
Forswear me for a Copperfield.
Rejoice not yet in false bravado
The pimpernel you flung away
Shall torchlike burn your El Dorado.
Vengeance is mine. I will repay.
There is a young gallant named Sax
There is a young gallant named Sax
Who is prone to hayfever attacks
For the prime of the year
To Cupid so dear
Stretches maidens - and men! - on their backs.
There’s a monarch who knows no repose
There’s a monarch who knows no repose
For he’s dressed in a dual trunk hose
And ever there itches
Some part of his breeches;
How he stands it the Lord only knows.
Lament for the Yeomen
A translation of Felix Beran’s “Des Weibes Klage”
And now is come the war, the war:
And now is come the war, the war:
And now is come the war, the war.
War! War!
For soldiers are they gone now:
For soldiers all.
Soldiers and soldiers!
All! All!
Soldiers must die, must die.
Soldiers all must die.
Soldiers and soldiers and soldiers
Must die.
What man is there to kiss now,
To kiss, to kiss,
O white soft body, this
Thy soft sweet whiteness?
There’s a donor of lavish largesse
There’s a donor of lavish largesse
Who once bought a play in MS
He found out what it all meant
By the final instalment
But poor Scriptor was left in a mess.
There is a clean climber called Sykes
There is a clean climber called Sykes
Who goes scrambling o’er ditches and dikes,
To skate on his scalp
Down the side of an alp
Is the kind of diversion he likes.
There once was a lounger named Stephen
There once was a lounger named Stephen
Whose youth was most odd and uneven.
He throve on the smell
Of a horrible hell
That a Hottentot wouldn’t believe in.
Now let awhile my messmates be
Now let awhile my messmates be
My ponderous Penelope
And my Ulysses born anew
In Dublin as an Irish jew.
With them I’ll sit, with them I’ll drink
Nor heed what press and pressmen think
Nor leave their rockbound house of joy
For Helen or for windy Troy.
There once was an author named Wells
There once was an author named Wells
Who wrote about science, not smells . . .
The result is a series of cells.
Solomon
There’s a hairyfaced Moslem named Simon
Whose tones are not those of a shy man
When with cast iron lungs
He howls twentyfive tongues —
But he’s not at all easy to rhyme on.
D. L. G.
There’s a George of the Georges named David
With whose words we are now night and day fed
He cries: I’ll give small rations
To all the small nations.
Bully God made this world — but I’ll save it.
A Goldschmidt swam in a Kriegsverein
A Goldschmidt swam in a Kriegsverein
As wise little Goldschmidts do,
And he loved every scion of the Habsburg line,
Each Archduke proud, the whole jimbang crowd,
And he felt that they loved him, too.
Herr Rosenbaum and Rosenfeld
And every other Feld except Schlachtfeld
All worked like niggers, totting rows of crazy figures
To save Kaiser Karl and Goldschmidt, too.
Chorus:
For he said it is bet-bet-better
To stick stamps on some God-damned letter
Than be shot in a trench
Amid shells and stench,
Jesus Gott, Donnerwet-wet-wetter.
Dooleysprudence
(Air: Mr. Dooley)
Who is the man when all the gallant nations run to war
Goes home to have his dinner by the very first cablecar
And as he eats his cantaloups contorts himself in mirth
To read the blatant bulletins of the rulers of the earth?
It’s Mr. Dooley,
Mr. Dooley,
The coolest chap our country ever knew
‘They are out to collar
The dime and dollar’
Says Mr. Dooley-ooley-ooley-oo.
Who is the funny fellow who declines to go to church
Since pope and priest and parson left the poor man in the lurch
And taught their flocks the only way to save all human souls
Was piercing human bodies through with dumdum bulletholes?
It’s Mr. Dooley,
Mr. Dooley,
The mildest man our country ever knew
‘Who will release us
From Jingo Jesus?’
Prays Mr. Dooley-ooley-ooley-oo.
Who is the meek philosopher who doesn’t care a damn
About the yellow peril or problem of Siam
And disbelieves that British Tar is water from life’s fount
&
nbsp; And will not gulp the gospel of the German on the Mount?
It’s Mr. Dooley,
Mr. Dooley,
The broadest brain our country ever knew
‘The curse of Moses
On both your houses’
Cries Mr. Dooley-ooley-ooley-oo.
Who is the cheerful imbecile who lights his long chibouk
With pages of the pendect, penal code and Doomsday Book
And wonders why bald justices are bound by law to wear
A toga and a wig made out of someone else’s hair?
It’s Mr. Dooley,
Mr. Dooley,
The finest fool our country ever knew
‘They took that toilette
From Pontius Pilate,
Thinks Mr. Dooley-ooley-ooley-oo.
Who is the man who says he’ll go the whole and perfect hog
Before he pays an income tax or licence for a dog
And when he licks a postagestamp regards with smiling scorn
The face of king or emperor or snout of unicorn?
It’s Mr. Dooley,
Mr. Dooley,
The wildest wag our country ever knew
‘O my poor tummy
His backside gummy!’
Moans Mr. Dooley-ooley-ooley-oo.
Who is the tranquil gentleman who won’t salute the State
Or serve Nabuchodonosor or proletariat
But thinks that every son of man has quite enough to do
To paddle down the stream of life his personal canoe?
It’s Mr. Dooley,
Mr. Dooley,