Pomes Penyeach

TILLYHe 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 theirhoofs.He drives them with a flowering branch beforehim,Smoke pluming their foreheads.Boor, bond of the herd,Tonight stretch full by the fire!I bleed by the black streamFor my torn bough!Dublin 1904.

WATCHING THE NEEDLEBOATS AT SAN SABBAI heard their young hearts cryingLoveward above the glancing oarAnd 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 passesReturn, no more return.Trieste 1912.

A FLOWER GIVEN TO MY DAUGHTERFrail the white rose and frail areHer hands that gaveWhose soul is sere and palerThan time’s wan wave.Rosefrail and fair–yet frailestA wonder wildIn gentle eyes thou veilest,My blueveined child.Trieste 1913.

SHE WEEPS OVER RAHOONRain 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 thouHow 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 coldAs his sad heart has lainUnder the moongrey nettles, the black mouldAnd muttering rain.Trieste 1913.

TUTTO È SCIOLTOA birdless heaven, seadusk, one lone starPiercing the west,As thou, fond heart, love’s time, so faint, so far,Rememberest.The clear young eyes’ soft look, the candid brow,The fragrant hair,Falling as through the silence falleth nowDusk of the air.Why then, remembering those shySweet lures, repineWhen the dear love she yielded with a sighWas all but thine?Trieste 1914.

ON THE BEACH AT FONTANAWind whines and whines the shingle,The crazy pierstakes groan;A senile sea numbers each singleSlimesilvered stone.From whining wind and colderGrey sea I wrap him warmAnd touch his trembling fineboned shoulderAnd boyish arm.Around us fear, descendingDarkness of fear aboveAnd in my heart how deep unendingAche of love!Trieste 1914.

SIMPLESO bella bionda,Sei come l’onda!Of cool sweet dew and radiance mildThe moon a web of silence weavesIn the still garden where a childGathers the simple salad leaves.A moondew stars her hanging hairAnd moonlight kisses her young browAnd, gathering, she sings an air:Fair as the wave is, fair, art thou!Be mine, I pray, a waxen earTo shield me from her childish croonAnd mine a shielded heart for herWho gathers simples of the moon.Trieste 1915.

FLOODGoldbrown upon the sated floodThe rockvine clusters lift and sway,Vast wings above the lambent waters broodOf sullen day.A waste of waters ruthlesslySways and uplifts its weedy maneWhere brooding day stares down upon the seaIn dull disdain.Uplift and sway, O golden vine,Your clustered fruits to love’s full flood,Lambent and vast and ruthless as in thineIncertitude!Trieste 1915.

NIGHTPIECEGaunt in gloom,The pale stars their torches,Enshrouded, wave.Ghostfires from heaven’s far verges faint illume,Arches on soaring arches,Night’s sindark nave.Seraphim,The lost hosts awakenTo service tillIn moonless gloom each lapses muted, dim,Raised when she has and shakenHer thurible.And long and loud,To night’s nave upsoaring,A starknell tollsAs the bleak insense surges, cloud on cloud,Voidward from the adoringWaste of souls.Trieste 1915.And long and loud,To night’s nave upsoaring,A starknell tollsAs the bleak insense surges, cloud on cloud,Voidward from the adoringWaste of souls.Trieste 1915.

A MEMORY OF THE PLAYERS IN A MIRROR ATMIDNIGHT.They mouth love’s language. GnashThe thirteen teethYour lean jaws grin with. LashYour itch and quailing, nude greed of the flesh.Love’s breath in you is stale, worded or sung,As sour as cat’s breath,Harsh of tongue.This grey that staresLies not, stark skin and bone.Leave greasy lips their kissing. NoneWill 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!Zurich 1917.

BAHNHOFSTRASSEThe eyes that mock me sign the wayWhereto I pass at eve of day,Grey way whose violet signals areThe trysting and the twining star.Ah star of evil! star of pain!Highhearted youth comes not againNor old heart’s wisdom yet to knowThe signs that mock me as I go.Zurich 1918.

A PRAYERAgain!Come, give, yield all your strength to me!From far a low word breathes on the breakingbrainIts 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 stillMy slow life! Bend deeper on me, threateninghead,Proud by my downfall, remembering, pityingHim who is, him who was!Again!Together, folded by the night, they lay on earth.I hearFrom far her low wordbreathe on my breakingbrain.Come! I yield. Bend deeper upon me! I amhere.Subduer, do not leave me! Only joy, onlyanguish,Take me, save me, soothe me, O spare meParis 1924.