Pomes Penyeach by James Joyce electronic edition: Keith Beckman (http://alphahelical.com/foaf) 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 an frail are Her hands that gave Whose soul is sere and paler Than timeÕs wan wave. Roserail and fair Ņ yet failest 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 ƒ SCIOLTO A birdless heaven, seadusk, one lone star Piercing the west, As thou, fond heart, loveÕs time, so faint, so far, Rememberest. The clear young eyesÕ 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 lÕonda! 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 and 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 shielding 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 loveÕs full flood, Lambent and vast and ruthless as is thine Incertitude! NIGHTPIECE Gaunt in gloom, The pale stars their torches, Enshrouded, wave. Ghostfires from heavenÕs far verges faint illume, Arches on soaring arches, NightÕs 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 nightÕs nave upsoaring, A starknell tolls As the bleak incense surges, cloud on cloud, Voidward from the adoring Waste of souls. ALONE The moonÕs 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 Ņ her name Ņ And all my soul is a delight, A swoon of shame. A MEMORY OF THE PLAYERS IN A MIRROR AT MIDNIGHT They mouth loveÕs language. Gnash The thirteen teeth Your lean jaws grin with. Lash Your itch and quailing, nude greed of the flesh. LoveÕs breath in you is stale, worded or sung, As sour as catÕs 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! 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 heartÕs 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 breaths on the breaking brain Its cruel calm, submissionÕs 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!