This Heart That Flutters Near My Heart

HIS heart that flutters near my heart

THIS

My hope and all my riches is,

Unhappy when we draw apart

And happy between kiss and kiss;
My hope and all my riches—yes!—
And all my happiness.

For there, as in some mossy nest

The wrens will divers treasures keep,

I laid those treasures I possessed

Ere that mine eyes had learned to weep.

Shall we not be as wise as they

Though love live but a day?

JAMES JOYCE.

I Hear an Army

I HEAR an army charging upon the land,

And the thunder of horses plunging, foam about their knees:

Arrogant, in black armour, behind them stand,

Disdaining the reins, with fluttering whips, the charioteers.

They cry unto the night their battle-name:

I moan in sleep when I hear afar their whirling laughter. They cleave the gloom of dreams, a blinding flame, Clanging, clanging upon my heart as upon an anvil.

They come shaking in triumph their long, green hair:
They come out of the sea and run shouting by the shore.
My heart, have you no wisdom thus to despair?
My love, my love, my love, why have you left me alone?
JAMES JOYCE.

To Death

HAVE not gathered gold;

The fame that I won perished;
In love I found but sorrow,
That withered my life.

Of wealth or of glory

I shall leave nothing behind me

(I think it, O God, enough!)

But my name in the heart of a child.

PADRAIC Pearse.

Translated by Thomas MacDonagh.

Ideal

NAKED I saw thee,

O beauty of beauty!

And I blinded my eyes
For fear I should flinch.

I heard thy music,

O sweetness of sweetness!
And I shut my ears
For fear I should fail.

I kissed thy lips

O sweetness of sweetness!
And I hardened my heart
For fear of my ruin.

I blinded my eyes
And my ears I shut,
I hardened my heart
And my love I quenched.

I turned my back

On the dream I had shaped,
And to this road before me
My face I turned.

I set my face

To the road here before me,

To the work that I see,

To the death that I shall meet.

PADRAIC PEarse.

Translated by Thomas MacDonagh.

River-Mates

I'LL be an otter, and I'll let you swim
A mate beside me; we will venture down
A deep, dark river, when the sky above
Is shut of the sun; spoilers are we,

Thick-coated; no dog's tooth can bite at our veins,
With eyes and ears of poachers; deep-earthed ones
Turned hunters; let him slip past

The little vole; my teeth are on an edge

For the King-fish of the River!

I hold him up.

The glittering salmon that smells of the sea;
I hold him high and whistle!

Now we go

Back to our earths; we will tear and eat

Sea-smelling salmon; you will tell the cubs

I am the Booty-bringer, I am the Lord

Of the River; the deep, dark, full and flowing River!

PADRAIC COLUM.