Pomes Penyeach

TILLY 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! Dublin 1904.

WATCHING THE NEEDLEBOATS AT SAN SABBA 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. Trieste 1912.

A FLOWER GIVEN TO MY DAUGHTER 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. Trieste 1913.

SHE WEEPS OVER RAHOON Rain 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 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. Trieste 1913.

TUTTO È SCIOLTO A birdless heaven, seadusk, one lone star Piercing 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 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? Trieste 1914.

ON THE BEACH AT FONTANA 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! Trieste 1914.

SIMPLES O bella bionda, Sei come l’onda! 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. Trieste 1915.

FLOOD 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 in thine Incertitude! Trieste 1915.

NIGHTPIECE 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 insense surges, cloud on cloud, Voidward from the adoring Waste of souls. Trieste 1915. And long and loud, To night’s nave upsoaring, A starknell tolls As the bleak insense surges, cloud on cloud, Voidward from the adoring Waste of souls. Trieste 1915.

A MEMORY OF THE PLAYERS IN A MIRROR AT MIDNIGHT. 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! Zurich 1917.

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. Zurich 1918.

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 wordbreathe 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 Paris 1924.