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Complete Works of James Joyce

Page 234

by Unknown


  Without the consent of Billy Walsh.

  O Ireland my first and only love

  Where Christ and Caesar are hand and glove!

  O lovely land where the shamrock grows!

  (Allow me, ladies, to blow my nose)

  To show you for strictures I don’t care a button

  I printed the poems of Mountainy Mutton

  And a play he wrote (you’ve read it, I’m sure)

  Where they talk of ‘bastard’, bugger’ and ‘whore’

  And a play on the Word and Holy Paul

  And some woman’s legs that I can’t recall

  Written by Moore, a genuine gent

  That lives on his property’s ten per cent:

  I printed mystical books in dozens:

  I printed the table book of Cousins

  Though (asking your pardon) as for the verse

  ’Twould give you a heartburn on your arse:

  I printed folklore from North and South

  By Gregory of the Golden Mouth:

  I printed poets, sad, silly and solemn:

  I printed Patrick What-do-you-Colm:

  I printed the great John Milicent Synge

  Who soars above on an angel’s wing

  In the playboy shift that he pinched as swag

  From Maunsel’s manager’s travelling-bag.

  But I draw the line at that bloody fellow,

  That was over here dressed in Austrian yellow,

  Spouting Italian by the hour

  To O’Leary Curtis and John Wyse Power

  And writing of Dublin, dirty and dear,

  In a manner no blackamoor printer could bear.

  Shite and onions! Do you think I’ll print

  The name of the Wellington Monument,

  Sydney Parade and the Sandymount tram,

  Downes’s cakeshop and Williams’s jam?

  I’m damned if I do - I’m damned to blazes!

  Talk about Irish Names of Places!

  It’s a wonder to me, upon my soul,

  He forgot to mention Curly’s Hole.

  No, ladies, my press shall have no share in

  So gross a libel on Stepmother Erin.

  I pity the poor - that’s why I took

  A red-headed Scotchman to keep my book.

  Poor sister Scotland! Her doom is fell;

  She cannot find any more Stuarts to sell.

  My conscience is fine as Chinese silk:

  My heart is as soft as buttermilk.

  Colm can tell you I made a rebate

  Of one hundred pounds on the estimate

  I gave him for his Irish Review.

  I love my country - by herrings I do!

  I wish you could see what tears I weep

  When I think of the emigrant train and ship.

  That’s why I publish far and wide

  My quite illegible railway guide.

  In the porch of my printing institute

  The poor and deserving prostitute

  Plays every night at catch-as-catch-can

  With her tight-breeched British artilleryman

  And the foreigner learns the gift of the gab

  From the drunken draggletail Dublin drab.

  Who was it said: Resist not evil?

  I’ll burn that book, so help me devil.

  I’ll sing a psalm as I watch it burn

  And the ashes I’ll keep in a one-handled urn.

  I’ll penance do with farts and groans

  Kneeling upon my marrowbones.

  This very next lent I will unbare

  My penitent buttocks to the air

  And sobbing beside my printing press

  My awful sin I will confess.

  My Irish foreman from Bannockburn

  Shall dip his right hand in the urn

  And sign crisscross with reverent thumb

  Memento homo upon my bum.

  The following poems are from the Chamber Music cycle

  Alas, how sad the lover’s lot

  Alas, how sad the lover’s lot

  Whose love to him can do offence!

  Alas, that beauty should have not

  Stability nor reverence!

  My heart is taken in a net

  Misled ill-used made captive too

  By promises and shows - but yet

  Happy with vows that are untrue.

  Poor heart, alas, that such offence

  Love all too reverent may not chide,

  That winds that have no reverence

  Abide where love doth still abide!

  O, it is cold and still - alas!

  O, it is cold and still - alas! -

  The soft white bosom of my love,

  Wherein no mood of guile or fear

  But only gentleness did move.

  She heard, as standing on the shore,

  A bell above the waters toll,

  She heard the call of ‘Come away’

  Which is the calling of the soul

  They covered her with linen white

  And set white candles at her head

  And loosened out her glorious hair

  And laid her on a snow-white bed.

  I saw her passing like a cloud,

  Discreet and silent and apart.

  O, little joy and great sorrow

  Is all the music of the heart

  The fiddle has a mournful sound

  That’s playing in the street below.

  I would I lay with her I love —

  And who is here to say me no?

  We lie upon the bed of love

  And lie together in the ground:

  To live, to love and to forget

  Is all the wisdom lovers have.

  She is at peace where she is sleeping

  She is at peace where she is sleeping,

  Her pale hands folded on her shroud,

  And I am wandering in the world

  Alone and sorrowful and proud.

  She heard, as standing on the shore,

  A bell above the waters toll,

  She heard the call of ‘Come away’

  Which is the calling of the soul.

  They covered her with linen white

  And laid her on a snow-white bed

  And loosened out her glorious hair

  And set white candles at her head.

  I remember her moving of old

  Amid grave days as one apart.

  O, little joy and great sorrow

  Is all the music of my heart.

  The fiddle has a mournful sound

  That’s playing in the street below —

  I would I lay with her I love:

  And who is there to say me no?

  I would I lay in the dark earth

  For sorrow bids me now depart

  And the remembering of love

  Makes a sad music in my heart.

  I said: I will go down to where

  I said: I will go down to where

  She waits amid the silences,

  And look upon her face and smile;

  And she will cover me with her hair.

  I shall forget what sorrow is

  And rest with her a little while.

  I put aside sorrow and care

  For these may not be where she is,

  For these are enemies. I came

  And sought the glimmer of her hair

  Amid the desolate silences

  And cried upon the gloom her name.

  Though we are leaving youth behind

  Though we are leaving youth behind

  And ways of pleasure would reprove

  Thou hast engraven in the mind

  Thy name, O many-weathered love

  And should the grace, the presence - all

  That was thy magic — cease to be,

  Here in the bosom ever shall

  Endure thy dear charactery.

  Come out to where youth is met

  Come out to where youth is met

  Under the moon, beside the sea,<
br />
  And leave your weapon and your net,

  Your loom and your embroidery.

  CHAMBER MUSIC

  This collection of poems was published in May, 1907 and is comprised of thirty-six love poems. Some believe the title refers to the sound of urine tinkling into a chamber pot, but it is now generally agreed that the title was first suggested by his Joyce’s brother Stanislaus, with a more traditional sense of the phrase.

  The first edition

  Chamber Music

  CONTENTS

  I

  II

  III

  IV

  V

  VI

  VII

  VIII

  IX

  X

  XI

  XII

  XIII

  XIV

  XV

  XVI

  XVII

  XVIII

  XIX

  XX

  XXI

  XXII

  XXIII

  XXIV

  XXV

  XXVI

  XXVII

  XXVIII

  XXIX

  XXX

  XXXI

  XXXII

  XXXIII

  XXXIV

  XXXV

  XXXVI

  CHAMBER MUSIC

  I

  Strings in the earth and air

  Make music sweet;

  Strings by the river where

  The willows meet.

  There’s music along the river

  For Love wanders there,

  Pale flowers on his mantle,

  Dark leaves on his hair.

  All softly playing,

  With head to the music bent,

  And fingers straying

  Upon an instrument.

  II

  The twilight turns from amethyst

  To deep and deeper blue,

  The lamp fills with a pale green glow

  The trees of the avenue.

  The old piano plays an air,

  Sedate and slow and gay;

  She bends upon the yellow keys,

  Her head inclines this way.

  Shy thought and grave wide eyes and hands

  That wander as they list —

  The twilight turns to darker blue

  With lights of amethyst.

  III

  At that hour when all things have repose,

  O lonely watcher of the skies,

  Do you hear the night wind and the sighs

  Of harps playing unto Love to unclose

  The pale gates of sunrise?

  When all things repose, do you alone

  Awake to hear the sweet harps play

  To Love before him on his way,

  And the night wind answering in antiphon

  Till night is overgone?

  Play on, invisible harps, unto Love,

  Whose way in heaven is aglow

  At that hour when soft lights come and go,

  Soft sweet music in the air above

  And in the earth below.

  IV

  When the shy star goes forth in heaven

  All maidenly, disconsolate,

  Hear you amid the drowsy even

  One who is singing by your gate.

  His song is softer than the dew

  And he is come to visit you.

  O bend no more in revery

  When he at eventide is calling.

  Nor muse: Who may this singer be

  Whose song about my heart is falling?

  Know you by this, the lover’s chant,

  ’Tis I that am your visitant.

  V

  Lean out of the window,

  Goldenhair,

  I hear you singing

  A merry air.

  My book was closed,

  I read no more,

  Watching the fire dance

  On the floor.

  I have left my book,

  I have left my room,

  For I heard you singing

  Through the gloom.

  Singing and singing

  A merry air,

  Lean out of the window,

  Goldenhair.

  VI

  I would in that sweet bosom be

  (O sweet it is and fair it is!)

  Where no rude wind might visit me.

  Because of sad austerities

  I would in that sweet bosom be.

  I would be ever in that heart

  (O soft I knock and soft entreat her!)

  Where only peace might be my part.

  Austerities were all the sweeter

  So I were ever in that heart.

  VII

  My love is in a light attire

  Among the apple-trees,

  Where the gay winds do most desire

  To run in companies.

  There, where the gay winds stay to woo

  The young leaves as they pass,

  My love goes slowly, bending to

  Her shadow on the grass;

  And where the sky’s a pale blue cup

  Over the laughing land,

  My love goes lightly, holding up

  Her dress with dainty hand.

  VIII

  Who goes amid the green wood

  With springtide all adorning her?

  Who goes amid the merry green wood

  To make it merrier?

  Who passes in the sunlight

  By ways that know the light footfall?

  Who passes in the sweet sunlight

  With mien so virginal?

  The ways of all the woodland

  Gleam with a soft and golden fire —

  For whom does all the sunny woodland

  Carry so brave attire?

  O, it is for my true love

  The woods their rich apparel wear —

  O, it is for my own true love,

  That is so young and fair.

  IX

  Winds of May, that dance on the sea,

  Dancing a ring-around in glee

  From furrow to furrow, while overhead

  The foam flies up to be garlanded,

  In silvery arches spanning the air,

  Saw you my true love anywhere?

  Welladay! Welladay!

  For the winds of May!

  Love is unhappy when love is away!

  X

  Bright cap and streamers,

  He sings in the hollow:

  Come follow, come follow,

  All you that love.

  Leave dreams to the dreamers

  That will not after,

  That song and laughter

  Do nothing move.

  With ribbons streaming

  He sings the bolder;

  In troop at his shoulder

  The wild bees hum.

  And the time of dreaming

  Dreams is over —

  As lover to lover,

  Sweetheart, I come.

  XI

  Bid adieu, adieu, adieu,

  Bid adieu to girlish days,

  Happy Love is come to woo

  Thee and woo thy girlish ways —

  The zone that doth become thee fair,

  The snood upon thy yellow hair,

  When thou hast heard his name upon

  The bugles of the cherubim

  Begin thou softly to unzone

  Thy girlish bosom unto him

  And softly to undo the snood

  That is the sign of maidenhood.

  XII

  What counsel has the hooded moon

  Put in thy heart, my shyly sweet,

  Of Love in ancient plenilune,

  Glory and stars beneath his feet —

  A sage that is but kith and kin

  With the comedian Capuchin?

  Believe me rather that am wise

  In disregard of the divine,

  A glory kindles in those eyes

  Trembles to starlight. Mine, O Mine!

  No more be tears in moon or m
ist

  For thee, sweet sentimentalist.

  XIII

  Go seek her out all courteously,

  And say I come,

  Wind of spices whose song is ever

  Epithalamium.

  O, hurry over the dark lands

  And run upon the sea

  For seas and lands shall not divide us

  My love and me.

  Now, wind, of your good courtesy

  I pray you go,

  And come into her little garden

  And sing at her window;

  Singing: The bridal wind is blowing

  For Love is at his noon;

  And soon will your true love be with you,

  Soon, O soon.

  XIV

  My dove, my beautiful one,

  Arise, arise!

  The night-dew lies

  Upon my lips and eyes.

  The odorous winds are weaving

  A music of sighs:

  Arise, arise,

  My dove, my beautiful one!

  I wait by the cedar tree,

  My sister, my love,

  White breast of the dove,

  My breast shall be your bed.

  The pale dew lies

  Like a veil on my head.

  My fair one, my fair dove,

  Arise, arise!

  XV

  From dewy dreams, my soul, arise,

  From love’s deep slumber and from death,

  For lo! the trees are full of sighs

  Whose leaves the morn admonisheth.

  Eastward the gradual dawn prevails

  Where softly-burning fires appear,

  Making to tremble all those veils

  Of grey and golden gossamer.

  While sweetly, gently, secretly,

  The flowery bells of morn are stirred

  And the wise choirs of faery

  Begin (innumerous!) to be heard.

  XVI

 

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