Pomes Penyeach

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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?

On the Beach at Fontana

On the Beach at Fontana


(Trieste, 1914)




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

Simples

(Trieste, 1914)





O bella bionda,
Sei come l'onda!

[song]
Fair as the wave is, fair, art thou! (see below)




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 an 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 shielded heart for her



Who gathers simples of the moon.

Flood

Flood


(Trieste, 1915)




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 love's full flood,



Lambent and vast and ruthless as is thine



Incertitude!

Nightpiece

Nightpiece


(Trieste, 22 January 1915)




Gaunt 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 awaken



To service till



In moonless gloom each lapses, muted, dim



Raised when she has and shaken



Her thurible.

And long and loud



To night's nave upsoaring



A starknell tolls



As the bleak incense surges, cloud on cloud,



Voidward from the adoring



Waste of souls.

Alone

Alone

(Zurich,1916)





The moon's 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— her name—



And all my soul is a delight,



A swoon of shame.

A Memory of the Players in a Mirror at Midnight

A Memory of the Players in a Mirror at Midnight

(Zurich, 1917)





They mouth love's language. Gnash



The thirteen teeth



Your lean jaws grin with. Lash



Your 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 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!


fdv:

	MS 1917 (Buffalo IV.A.2, fragment), lines 10-11	MS 1919 (Huntington E.6.b), lines 10-11
10	This grey that stares	This grey that stares
11	Will choose what you see to gaze upon	Will choose her what you see to mouth upon.

Bahnhofstrasse

Bahnhofstrasse

(Zurich, 1918)





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

A Prayer

(Paris 1924)





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!