All day I hear the noise of waters

By James Joyce

All day I hear the noise of waters

Making moan,

Sad as the sea-bird is when, going

Forth alone,

He hears the winds cry to the water's

Monotone.

The grey winds, the cold winds are blowing

Where I go.

I hear the noise of many waters

Far below.

All day, all night, I hear them flowing

To and fro.

This is the 35th poem out of a set of 36 that made up Joyce's first published work (Chamber Music 1907) It was this book that got him into the Imagist Anthology and so earned him the support of Eliot and Pound who publicized his later works.JS