O sweetflower we were told about all night. On a hillside in that large bright land O drops of pearls shining bright Across a grassy field, a whitened glance. You are high and folding beyond my head, A fight of lilies white in idol glow.

Treachery is unfolded. You vast sunlit trees glory’d clay That trenched summer flows back. Now green and softened with blossomed waste O’spring shall mark us forever. Oh sweetflower, Kill nether blossoms soft-drunken rate, Aloud to all things in this watery gloom, I sing of that voice in sea gone down, Of these sweet drops all dank, wet light.

A step, a breath, a withered breath, A view of lost blue sky of alone. Alone like a bloom singed, begetting green, Forever… The sun-fallen, ever. More hopeful hearing…

• James Joyce