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Complete Works of James Joyce

Page 238

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  And so he will and so he will.

  Der Wind stand auf, liess los einen Schrei,

  Pfiff mit den Fingern schrill dabei.

  Wirbelte durres Laub durch den Wald

  Und hammerte Aste mit Riesengewalt.

  Zum Tod, heult, zum Tod und Mord!

  Und meint es ernst : ein Wind, ein Wort.

  Vinden staar op med en vild Huru,

  Han piber paa fingerne og nu

  Sparker bladenes flyvende flok.

  Traeerne troer han er Ragnarok

  Skovens liv og blod vil han draebe og drikke.

  Hvad der bliver at goere, det ved ieg ikke.

  Les Verts de Jacques

  Le vent d’un saut lance son cri,

  Se siffle sur les doigts et puis

  Trépigne les feuilles d’automne,

  Craque les branches qu’il assomme.

  Je tuerai, crie-t-il, holà!

  Et vous verrez s’il le fera!

  Surgit Boreas digitorum

  Fistulam, faciens et clamor em.

  Pes pugno certat par (oremus!)

  Foliis quatit omne nemus.

  Caedam, ait, caedam, caedam!

  Nos ne habeat il le praedam.

  Balza in piè Fra Vento egrida.

  Tre dita in bocca fischia la sfida.

  Tira calci, pesta botte:

  Ridda di foglie e frasche rotte.

  Ammazzero, ei urla, O gente!

  E domeneddio costui non mente diuraddio

  As I was going to Joyce Saint James’

  As I was going to Joyce Saint James’

  I met with seven extravagant dames;

  Every dame had a bee in her bonnet,

  With bats from the belfry roosting upon it.

  And Ah, I said, poor Joyce Saint James,

  What can he do with these terrible dames?

  Poor Saint James Joyce.

  Pour la Rime Seulement

  A Pierre de Lanux

  dit Valéry Larbaud

  prête moi un dux

  qui peut conduire l’assault

  mes pioux piou sont fondus

  et meurent de malaise

  sois ton petit tondu

  pour la gloire d’Ares

  Lanux de la Pierre

  à Beaulard fit réplique

  foute-moi la guerre

  avec tes soldiques

  car pour l’Italie

  presto fais tes malles

  tire ta bonne partie

  avec quelques balles

  à ces mots Leryval

  file en obobus

  et comme le vieux Hannibal

  perce le blocus

  à peine atterre sa mine

  qu’on crie à la foire

  un sous la Mursoline

  pour l’arrats de gloire

  A Portrait of the Artist as an Ancient Mariner

  I met with an ancient scribelleer

  As I scoured the pirates’ sea

  His sailes were alullt at nought coma null

  Not raise the wind could he.

  The bann of Bull, the sign of Sam

  Burned crimson on his brow.

  And I rocked at the rig of his bricabrac brig

  With K.O. 11 on his prow

  Shakefears & Coy danced poor old joy

  And some of their steps were corkers

  As they shook the last shekels like phantom freckels

  His pearls that had poisom porkers

  The gnome Norbert read rich bills of fare

  The ghosts of his deep debauches

  But there was no bibber to slip that scribber

  The price of a box of matches

  For all cried, Schuft! He has lost the Luft

  That made his U.boat go

  And what a weird leer wore that scribelleer

  As his wan eye winked with woe.

  He dreamed of the goldest sands uprolled

  By the silviest Beach of Beaches

  And to watch it dwindle gave him Kugelkopfschwindel

  Till his eyeboules bust their stitches

  His hold shipped seas with a drunkard’s ease

  And its deadweight grew and grew

  While the witless wag still waived his flag

  Jemmyrend’s white and partir’s blue.

  His tongue stuck out with a dragon’s drouth

  For a sluice of schweppes and brandy

  And but for the glows on his roseate nose

  Youd have staked your goat he was Gandhi.

  For the Yanks and Japs had made off with his traps

  So that stripped to the stern he clung

  While, increase of a cross, an Albatross

  Abaft his nape was hung.

  Pennipomes Twoguineaseach

  Sing a song of shillings

  A guinea cannot buy,

  Thirteen tiny pomikins

  Bobbing in a pie.

  The printer’s pie was published

  And the pomes began to sing

  And wasn’t Herbert Hughesius

  As happy as a king!

  There’s a genial young poetriarch Euge

  There’s a genial young poetriarch Euge

  Who hollers with heartiness huge:

  Let sick souls sob for solace

  So the jeunes joy with Jolas!

  Book your berths! Après mot, le déluge.

  Have you heard of one Humpty Dumpty

  Have you heard of one Humpty Dumpty

  How he fell with a roll and a rumble

  And lay low like Low All of a crumple

  By the butt of the Magazine’s Wall?

  Epilogue to Ibsen’s ‘Ghosts’

  Dear quick, whose conscience buried deep

  The grim old grouser has been salving,

  Permit one spectre more to peep.

  I am the ghost of Captain Alving.

  Silenced and smothered by my past

  Like the lewd knight in dirty linen

  I struggle forth to swell the cast

  And air a long-suppressed opinion.

  For muddling weddings into wakes

  No fool could vie with Parson Manders.

  I, though a dab at ducks and drakes,

  Let gooseys serve or sauce their ganders.

  My spouse bore me a blighted boy,

  Our slavey pupped a bouncing bitch.

  Paternity, thy name is joy

  When the wise sire knows which is which.

  Both swear I am that selfsame man

  By whom their infants were begotten.

  Explain, fate, if you care and can

  Why one is sound and one is rotten.

  Olaf may plod his stony path

  And live as chastely as Susanna

  Yet pick up in some Turkish bath

  His quantum est of Pox Romana.

  While Haakon hikes up primrose way,

  Spreeing and gleeing as he goes,

  To smirk upon his latter day

  Without a pimple on his nose.

  I gave it up I am afraid

  But if I loafed and found it fun

  Remember how a coyclad maid

  Knows how to take it out of one.

  The more I dither on and drink

  My midnight bowl of spirit punch

  The firmlier I feel and think

  Friend Manders came too oft to lunch.

  Since scuttling ship Vikings like me

  Reck not to whom the blame is laid,

  Y.M.C.A., V.D., T.B.

  Or Harbourmaster of Port-Said.

  Blame all and none and take to task

  The harlot’s lure, the swain’s desire.

  Heal by all means but hardly ask

  Did this man sin or did his sire.

  The shack’s ablaze. That canting scamp,

  The carpenter, has dished the parson.

  Now had they kept their powder damp

  Like me there would have been no arson.

  Nay more, were I not all I was,

  Weak, wanton, waster out and
out,

  There would have been no world’s applause

  And damn all to write home about.

  Goodbye, Zurich, I must leave you

  Goodbye, Zurich, I must leave you,

  Though it breaks my heart to shreds

  Tat then attat.

  Something tells me I am needed

  In Paree to hump the beds.

  Bump! I hear the trunks a tumbling

  And I’m frantic for the fray.

  Farewell, dolce far niente!

  Goodbye, Zurichesee!

  Le bon repos

  Le bon repos

  Des Espagneux

  Et les roseaux

  d’Annecy

  Leurrent notre âme

  Et nous nous pâmons

  Pour une Paname

  Loin d’ici

  Tirons nos grègues

  Faisons nos mègues

  Prenons le trègue

  Et filons là!

  Too hot to go on . . .

  Aiutami dunque, O Musa, nitidissima Calligraphia

  Aiutami dunque, O Musa, nitidissima Calligraphia

  Forbisci la forma e lo stil e frena lo stilo ribelle!

  Mesci il limpide suon e distilla il liquido senso

  E sulla rena riarsa, deh!, scuoti lungo il ramo!

  Come-all-ye

  Come all you lairds and ladies and listen to my lay!

  I’ll tell of my adventures upon last Thanksgiving Day

  I was picked by Madame Jolas to adorn the barbecue

  So the chickenchoker patched me till I looked as good as new.

  I drove out, all tarred and feathered, from the Grand Palais Potin

  But I met with foul disaster in the Place Saint Augustin.

  My charioteer collided - with the shock I did explode

  And the force of my emotions shot my liver on the road.

  Up steps a dapper sergeant with his pencil and his book.

  Our names and our convictions down in Leber’s code he took.

  Then I hailed another driver and resumed my swanee way.

  They couldn’t find my liver but I hadn’t time to stay.

  When we reached the gates of Paris cries the boss at the Octroi:

  Holy Poule, what’s this I’m seeing? Can it be Grandmother Loye?

  When Caesar got the bird she was the dindy of the flock

  But she must have boxed a round or two with some old turkey cock.

  I ruffled up my plumage and proclaimed with eagle’s pride:

  You jackdaw, these are truffles and not blues on my backside.

  Mind, said he, that one’s a chestnut. There’s my bill and here’s my thanks

  And now please search through your stuffing and fork out that fifty francs.

  At last I reached the banquet-hall - and what a sight to see!

  I felt myself transported back among the Osmanli.

  I poured myself a bubbly flask and raised the golden horn

  With three cheers for good old Turkey and the roost where I was born.

  I shook claws with all the hammers and bowed to blonde and brune,

  The mistress made a signal and the mujik called the tune.

  Madamina read a message from the Big Noise of her State

  After which we crowed in unison: That Turco’s talking straight!

  We settled down to feed and, if you want to know my mind,

  I thought that I could gobble but they left me picked behind,

  They crammed their crops till cockshout when like ostriches they ran

  To hunt my missing liver round the Place Saint Augustin.

  Still I’ll lift my glass to Gallia and augur that we may

  Untroubled in her dovecot dwell till next Thanksgiving Day

  So let every Gallic gander pass the sauceboat to his goose —

  And let’s all play happy homing though our liver’s on the loose.

  There’s a maevusmarked maggot called Murphy

  There’s a maevusmarked maggot called Murphy

  Who would fain be thought thunder-and-turfy.

  When he’s out to be chic he

  Sticks on his gum dicky

  And worms off for a breeze by the surfy.

  The Poetry

  Joyce, 1931

  LIST OF POEMS IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER

  Et Tu, Healy

  O fons Bandusiae

  Are you not weary of ardent ways

  I only ask you to give me your fair hands

  La scintille de l’allumette

  A voice that sings

  Scalding tears shall not avail

  Yea, for this love of mine

  We will leave the village behind

  Gladly above

  After the tribulation of dark strife

  Told sublimely in the language

  Love that I can give you, lady

  Wind thine arms round me

  Where none murmureth

  Lord, thou knowest my misery

  Thunders and sweeps along

  Though there is no resurrection from the past

  And I have sat amid the turbulent crowd

  Gorse-flower makes but sorry dining

  That I am feeble, that my feet

  The grieving soul. But no grief is thine

  Let us fling to the winds all moping and madness

  Hands that soothe my burning eyes

  Now a whisper... now a gale

  O, queen, do on thy cloak

  Requiem eternam dona ei, Domine

  Of thy dark life, without a love, without a friend

  I intone the high anthem

  Some are comely and some are sour

  Flower to flower knits

  In the soft nightfall

  Discarded, broken in two

  The Holy Office

  Gas from a Burner

  Alas, how sad the lover’s lot

  O, it is cold and still - alas!

  She is at peace where she is sleeping

  I said: I will go down to where

  Though we are leaving youth behind

  Come out to where youth is met

  Chamber Music

  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

  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

&
nbsp; 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

  LIST OF POEMS IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER

  A bard once in lakelapt Sirmione

 

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