chamber Music James Joyce Part 3

 

In the dark pine-wood

I would we lay,

In deep cool shadow

At noon of day.

How sweet to lie there,

Sweet to kiss,

Where the great pine-forest

Enaisled is!

Thy kiss descending

Sweeter were

With a soft tumult

Of thy hair.

O unto the pine-wood

At noon of day

Come with me now,

Sweet love, away.

He who hath glory lost, nor hath

Found any soul to fellow his,

Among his foes in scorn and wrath

Holding to ancient nobleness,

That high unconsortable one -- -

His love is his companion.

Of that so sweet imprisonment

My soul, dearest, is fain -- -

Soft arms that woo me to relent

And woo me to detain.

Ah, could they ever hold me there

Gladly were I a prisoner!

Dearest, through interwoven arms

By love made tremulous,

That night allures me where alarms

Nowise may trouble us;

But lseep to dreamier sleep be wed

Where soul with soul lies prisoned.

This heart that flutters near my heart

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?

Silently she's combing,

Combing her long hair

Silently and graciously,

With many a pretty air.

The sun is in the willow leaves

And on the dapplled grass,

And still she's combing her long hair

Before the looking-glass.

I pray you, cease to comb out,

Comb out your long hair,

For I have heard of witchery

Under a pretty air,

That makes as one thing to the lover

Staying and going hence,

All fair, with many a pretty air

And many a negligence.

Lightly come or lightly go:

Though thy heart presage thee woe,

Vales and many a wasted sun,

Oread let thy laughter run,

Till the irreverent mountain air

Ripple all thy flying hair.

Lightly, lightly -- - ever so:

Clouds that wrap the vales below

At the hour of evenstar

Lowliest attendants are;

Love and laughter song-confessed

When the heart is heaviest.

Thou leanest to the shell of night,

Dear lady, a divining ear.

In that soft choiring of delight

What sound hath made thy heart to fear?

Seemed it of rivers rushing forth

From the grey deserts of the north?

That mood of thine

Is his, if thou but scan it well,

Who a mad tale bequeaths to us

At ghosting hour conjurable -- -

And all for some strange name he read

           In Purchas or in Holinshed.

Though I thy Mithridates were,

Framed to defy the poison-dart,

Yet must thou fold me unaware

To know the rapture of thy heart,

And I but render and confess

The malice of thy tenderness.

For elegant and antique phrase,

Dearest, my lips wax all too wise;

Nor have I known a love whose praise

Our piping poets solemnize,

Neither a love where may not be

Ever so little falsity.