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 is thine
Incertitude!

James Joyce

James Joyce was an Irish novelist, short story writer, poet, teacher, and literary critic. He is regarded as one of the most influential and important writers of the 20th century. Joyce is best known for his groundbreaking work 'Ulysses' (1922), and for his other significant works including 'A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man' (1916), 'Finnegans Wake' (1939), and the short story collection 'Dubliners' (1914). He was a key figure in the modernist avant-garde movement.

James Joyce

This Heart That Flutters Near My Heart

James Joyce, Simple Poetry

Sleep Now, O Sleep Now

James Joyce, Simple Poetry

A Prayer

James Joyce, Simple Poetry

Thou Leanest To The Shell Of Night

James Joyce, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

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!

James Joyce

Alone

The noon'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.

James Joyce

Rain Has Fallen All The Day

Rain has fallen all the day.
O come among the laden trees:
The leaves lie thick upon the way
Of memories.

Staying a little by the way
Of memories shall we depart.
Come, my beloved, where I may
Speak to your heart.

James Joyce

The Flood

Waves trough, rebound, and furious boil again,
Like plunging monsters rising underneath,
Who at the top curl up a shaggy mane,
A moment catching at a surer breath,
Then plunging headlong down and down, and on
Each following whirls the shadow of the last;
And other monsters rise when those are gone,
Crest their fringed waves, plunge onward and are past.
The chill air comes around me oceanly,
From bank to bank the waterstrife is spread;
Strange birds like snowspots oer the whizzing sea
Hang where the wild duck hurried past and fled.
On roars the flood, all restless to be free,
Like Trouble wandering to Eternity.

John Clare

From Dewy Dreams, My Soul, Arise

From dewy dreams, my soul, arise,
From loves deep slumber and from death,
For lo! the treees are full of sighs
Whose leaves the morn admonisheth.

Eastward the gradual dawn prevails
Where softly-burning fires appear,
Making to tremble all those veils
Of grey and golden gossamer.

While sweetly, gently, secretly,
The flowery bells of morn are stirred
And the wise choirs of faery
Begin (innumerous!) to be heard.

James Joyce

London Flood, July 11th, 1883.

        From the long continuous rains
        O'erflowing were the swamps and drains,
        For each day had its heavy shower,
        Torrents fell for many an hour;
        At London where two branches join
        It seem'd two furies did combine,
        For to spread far both death and woe,
        With their wild, raging overflow;
        E'en houses did on waters float,
        As though each had been built for boat,
        And where was wealth and joy and bloom,
        Soon naught but inmates of the tomb;
        Flood o'erflowed both vale and ridges,
        And swept railroads, dams and bridges,
        A mother climbed in tree to save
        Her infant from a watery grave,
        But on the house you saw its blood
        Where it was cr...

James McIntyre