Chamber Music

Pomes Penyeach

[pdf]

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

Tilly (Dublin, 1904, originally known as "Cabra")
Watching the Needleboats at San Sabba (Trieste, 1912)
A Flower Given to My Daughter (Trieste, 1913)
She Weeps over Rahoon (Trieste, 1913)
Tutto è sciolto (Trieste, 13 July 1914)
On the Beach at Fontana (Trieste, 1914)
Simples (Trieste, 1914)
Flood (Trieste, 1915)
Nightpiece (Trieste, 22 January 1915)
Alone (Zurich,1916)
A Memory of the Players in a Mirror at Midnight (Zurich, 1917)
Bahnhofstrasse (Zurich, 1918)
A Prayer (Paris 1924)

Tilly

Tilly

(Dublin, 1904, originally known as "Cabra")



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

Watching the Needleboats at San Sabba


(Trieste, 1912?) [1913]




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

A Flower Given to My Daughter


(Trieste, 1913)
when Lucia was six




Frail the white rose and frail are



Her hands that gave



Whose soul is sere and paler



Than time's wan wave.







Rosefrail and fair — yet frailest



A wonder wild



In gentle eyes thou veilest,



My blueveined child.

She Weeps over Rahoon

She Weeps over Rahoon


(Trieste, 1913)




Rain on Rahoon falls softly, softly falling,



Where my dark lover lies.

Rahoon Cemetery

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.




fdv:

	TYP 1915 (Cornell 54), lines 1-8	MS 1919 (Huntington E.6.b), lines 1-8
1	Rain on Rahoon falls softly, softly falling,	Rain on Rahoon falls softly, softly falling,
2	Where my dark lover lies	Sad  is his voice that calls me, sadly calling,
3	Soft  is the voice that calls me, softly calling,	Where my dark lover lies.
4	At grey moonrise	At grey moonrise.
5	Love, hear thou	Love, hear thou
6	How sad,  how old the heart is, ever calling,	How  soft,  how sad his voice is ever calling,
7	Ever unanswered – and the dark rain falling,	Ever unanswered, and the dark rain falling,
8	Then as now.-	Then as now.
	[...]	[...]

Tutto è sciolto

Tutto è sciolto

(Trieste, 13 July 1914)


The title, "Tutto è Sciolto", can be translated as "All is lost now", and is a quotation from the opera The Sleepwalker (La Sonnambula) by Vincenzo Bellini. (literally: Everything is melted)


A birdless heaven, seadusk, one lone star



Piercing the west,



And thou, fond heart, love's time, so faint, so far,



Rememberest.







Her clear young eyes' 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?

fdv:

	TYP 1915 (Cornell 54)	MS 1927 (Huntington E.6.b)
	Tutto è Sciolto	Tutto è Sciolto
1	A birdles heaven, seadusk and a star	A birdless heaven, seadusk, one lone star
2	In the dim west–	Piercing the west,
3	And thou, poor heart, love's image, faint and far	As thou, fond heart, love's time, so faint, so far,
4	Rememberest!	Rememberest.
5	Her silent eyes and her soft foamwhite brow	The clear young eyes' soft look, the candid brow,
6	And fragrant hair,	The fragrant hair,
7	Falling as in the silence falleth now	Falling as through the silence falleth now
8	Dusk from the air.	Dusk of the air.
9	Ah, why wilt thou remember this or why,	Why then, remembering those shy
10	Poor heart repine	Sweet lures, repine
11	If the sweet love she gave thee with a sigh	When the dear love she yielded with a sigh
12	Was never thine?	Was all but thine?