Nuvoletta
by James Joyce
(extracted from Finnegan’s Wake)

Nuvoletta in her lightdress,
spunn of sisteen shimmers,
was looking down on them,
leaning over the bannistars
and listening all she childishly could. . . .

She was alone.
All her nubied companions
were asleeping with the squirrels. . . .
She tried all the winsome wonsome ways
he four winds had taught her.
She tossed her sfumastelliacinous hair
like la princesse de la Petite Bretagne
and she rounded her mignons arms
like Mrs. Cornwallis-West
and she smiled over herself
like the image of a pose of a daughter
of the Emerour of Irelande
and she sighed after herself
as were she born to bride with Tristus
Tristior Tristissimus.
But, sweet madonine, she might fair as well
have carried her daisy’s worth to Florida. . . .

Oh, how it was duusk!
From Vallee Maraia to Grasyaplainia,
dormimust echo!
A dew! Ah dew! It was so duusk
that the tears of night beagn to fall,
first by ones and twos,
then by threes and fours,
at last by fives and sixes of sevens,
for the tired ones were wecking,
as we weep now with them.
O! O! O! Par la pluie! . . .

Then Nuvoletta reflected for the last time
in her little long life
And she made up all her myriads
of drifting minds in one.
She cancelled all her engauzements.
She climbed over the bannistars;
she gave a childy cloudy cry:
Nuée! Nuée!
A lightdress fluttered
She was gone.