Watching The Needle Boats at San Saba - Poem By James Joyce set to music

“WATCHING THE NEEDLEBOATS AT SAN SABBA”
Poem by James Joyce
KEN SULLIVAN, Composer
AMANDA FORSYTHE, Soprano
ANNA REINERSMAN, Harp
While living in Trieste, Italy, James Joyce would watch Italian fishermen sailing in their needleboats at San Sabba. They reminded Joyce of the Irish fishermen in Galway with their fishing boats called Galway Hookers. PHOTO (Antique Painting): Venetian Fishing Boats by Haseltine
"Watching the Needleboats at San Sabba" - JAMES JOYCE
I heard their young hearts crying
Loveward above the glancing oar
And heard the prairie grasses sighing:
No more, return no more!
O hearts, O sighing grasses,
Vainly your loveblown bannerets mourn!
No more will the wild wind that passes
Return, no more return.
James Joyce, Trieste 1912
From James Joyce’s book of poems called “Pomes Penyeach.”
Published by Shakespeare and Company, Paris (1927)
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