James Joyce

Irish writer, James Joyce set many of his works in the city of Dublin but nature was never far away. His descriptions of nature are as vivid as his urban scenes. Her is one of my favourites.

James Joyce 

(2 February 1882 – 13 January 1941)

James Joyce was born on this day in 1882. A fellow Dubliner, he is one of my favourite writers since studying him at school. I didn't tackle the hefty Ulysses until a few years ago when I doggedly ploughed through it. It is hard work but worth the effort. On the other hand, Dubliners and Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man are short but don't be fooled. Though concise, their characters are vivid and complex. Joyce, as he does so well, presents us with real people,full of contradictions,confusions, and troubles that are all recognisably human. Though set in a Dublin before my time, he conjures up the unique  spirit of the place and of the timeless issues that face human beings.  Joyce takes the reader on a journey into a story but also into language. His characters are city dwellers but nature is never far away in his narrations. 

To celebrate Joyce's birthday, I offer you a slice of his beautiful writing.  I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

Wintry churchyard, Cumbria

“A few light taps upon the pane made him turn to the window. It had begun to snow again. He watched sleepily the flakes, silver and dark, falling obliquely against the lamplight. The time had come for him to set out on his journey westward. Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills, falling softly upon the Bog of Allen and, farther westward, softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves. It was falling, too, upon every part of the lonely churchyard on the hill where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay thickly drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the little gate, on the barren thorns. His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.”

 (extract from Dubliners)

March

A poem to the month of March, the herald of Spring, 

by William Morris 
  born on March 24th 1834

 Slayer of the winter, art thou here again?
O welcome, thou that's bring'st the summer nigh!
The bitter wind makes not thy victory vain,
Nor will we mock thee for thy faint blue sky.
Welcome, O March! whose kindly days and dry
Make April ready for the throstle's song,
Thou first redresser of the winter's wrong!

Yea, welcome March! and though I die ere June,
Yet for the hope of life I give thee praise,
Striving to swell the burden of the tune
That even now I hear thy brown birds raise,
Unmindful of the past or coming days;
Who sing: 'Oh joy! a new year is begun:
What happiness to look upon the sun!'

Ah, what begetteth all this storm of bliss
But death himself, who crying solemnly,
E'en from the heart of sweet Forgetfulness,
Bids us 'Rejoice, lest pleasureless ye die,
Within a little time must ye go by.
Stretch forth your open hands, and while ye live
Take all the gifts that Death and Life may give.'
 

(William Morris)

Robert Graves Birthday

 

 Robert Graves (1895-1985)

 AN ENGLISH WOOD 

 This valley wood is pledged
To the set shape of things,
And reasonably hedged:
Here are no harpies fledged,
No rocs may clap their wings,
Nor gryphons wave their stings.
Here, poised in quietude,
Calm elementals brood
On the set shape of things:
They fend away alarms
From this green wood.
Here nothing is that harms -
No bulls with lungs of brass,
No toothed or spiny grass,
No tree whose clutching arms
Drink blood when travellers pass,
No mount of glass;
No bardic tongues unfold
Satires or charms.
Only, the lawns are soft,
The tree-stems, grave and old;
Slow branches sway aloft,
The evening air comes cold,
The sunset scatters gold.
Small grasses toss and bend,
Small pathways idly tend
Towards no fearful end. 

Happy Birthday HD Thoreau

Henry David Thoreau

born Concord, Massachusetts

July 12, 1817

“To read well, that is, to read true books in a true spirit, is a noble exercise, and one that will tax the reader more than any exercise which the customs of the day esteem. It requires a training such as the athletes underwent, the steady intention almost of the whole life to this object. Books must be read as deliberately and reservedly as they were written.” 

 Henry David Thoreau