This Brown Land

 I have, of course, recently recorded James Joyce's song of this title to Spotify, YouTube Music, Deezer, Amazing Radio etc., etc.

O now, o now, in this brown land

Where Love did, once, sweet music make,

We two shall wander hand in hand,

Forbearing for old friendship's sake;

Nor grieve because our love was bright,

Which now fades in the fading light

A rogue in red and yellow dress

Is knocking, knocking, at the tree

And, all around, in our loneliness,

The wind is whistling merrily.

The leaves they do not sigh at all,

When the year takes them in the fall.

O now, o now, we hear no more

The villanelle and the roundelay;

Yet we will kiss, sweet-heart, before

We take sad leave at end of day,

Grieve not, sweet-heart, for anything;

The year, the year, is gathering.

The poem is about fading love, as, I suppose, the couple is advancing in years. So, you might guess that it is one of his later poems and concerns his own life and love; but you would be wrong!

The poem was included in his first book, "Chamber Music," published in 1913, when he was about 30, but was probably written long before actual publication. Like his novels, it  was, no doubt, based on his observation of other people.

W B Yeats sent a copy of Joyce's book to American aspiring poet Ezra Pound, and one of them, "I hear an army," was selected by Pound for inclusion in the first book of the "Imagist Poets," published in 1914. After the First World War, Pound enticed the Joyce family to come and live in Parish, where a group of aspiring writers, mostly American, were gathered between the wars. Joyce was highly regarded by the other aspiring writers by reason of his reputation as an Imagist Poet.

The Imagists wanted to get away from the flowery language of the Romantic Poets (like Wordsworth and Coleridge) and considered poetry to be more about presenting Images. So, when I considered what kind of cover picture I would use for this poem, I decided to include some sort of Image; hence the sculpture (representing the evolution of life) from the National Botanical Gardens of Ireland, among the trees, browned by Photo-Shop. I am not sure, however, that this might be more appropriate to the "Symbolist" poets, which included W B Yeats.

I have changed some of Joyce's words, which have changed meaning since his time. When he used the term "gay," he meant "joyous," rather than the meaning it has now acquired, so I replaced it here with "bright."

The tune: to me every poem seems to present its own air which comes out when you recite it out loud, and this simple air is what I write down for the poem. (Of course, another time, it might present itself differently).