The Complete Works of   JAMES JOYCE

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The Complete Works of   JAMES JOYCE Page 236

by James Joyce


  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

&nbs
p; 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

  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,

 

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