James Joyce: Sad is his voice that calls me

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 to our hearts. O love, shall lie and cold
as his sad heart has lain
under the moongrey nettles, the black mould.
and muttering rain.

    --James Joyce (1882-1941). This poem was inspired by the true story of a young man, Michael Bodkin, who courted Joyce's future wife, Nora, before they met. Michael had tuberculosis but "left his house on the rainy night before Nora left Galway to sing beneath her window a song of sorrow and farewell. He died from exposure a short time later and was buried in Rahoon cemetery." [From For the Love of Ireland, ed. Susan Cahill]

Comments

[Sad Qutoes]

Beautiful poem.