Walls

With no consideration, no pity, no shame,
they have built walls around me, thick and high.
And now I sit here feeling hopeless.
I can't think of anything else: this fate gnaws my mind -
because I had so much to do outside.
When they were building the walls, how could I not have noticed!
But I never heard the builders, not a sound.
Imperceptibly they have closed me off from the outside world.

poem by Constantine P. Cavafy
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In A Town of Osroini

Yesterday, around midnight, they brought us our friend Remon,
who'd been wounded in a taverna fight.
Through the windows we left wide open,
the moon cast light over his beautiful body as it lay on the bed.
We're a mixture here: Syrians, immigrant Greeks, Armenians, Medes.
Remon is one of these too. But last night,
when the moon shone on his sensual face,
our thoughts went back to Plato's Charmidis.

poem by Constantine P. Cavafy
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Tomb of Ignatos

Here I'm not the Kleon famous in Alexandria
(where they're not easily dazzled)
for my marvelous houses, my gardens,
for my horses and chariots,
for the jewels and silks I wore.
Far from it—here I'm not that Kleon:
his twenty-eight years are to be wiped out.
I'm Ignatios, lector, who came to his senses very late;
but even so, in that way I lived ten happy months
in the peace, the security of Christ.

poem by Constantine P. Cavafy
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Before The Statue Of Endymion

I have come from Miletos to Latmos
on a white chariot drawn by four snow-white mules,
all their trappings silver.
I sailed from Alexandria in a purple trireme
to perform sacred rites—
sacrifices and libations—in honor of Endymion.
And here is the statue. I now gaze in ecstasy
at Endymion's famous beauty.
My slaves empty baskets of jasmine
and auspicious tributes revive the pleasure of ancient days.

poem by Constantine P. Cavafy
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Priest At The Serapeion

My kind old father
whose love for me has always stayed the same
I mourn my kind old father
who died two days ago, just before dawn.

Jesus Christ, I try continually
in my every thought, word, and deed
to keep the commandments
of your most holly Church; and I reject
all who deny you. But now I mourn:
I grieve, O Christ, for my father
even though he was -terrible as it is to say it
priest at that cursed Serapeion.

poem by Constantine P. Cavafy
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Understanding

The years of my youth, my sensual life --
how clearly I see their meaning now.

What needless repentances, how futile....

But I did not understand the meaning then.

In the dissolute life of my youth
the desires of my poetry were being formed,
the scope of my art was being plotted.

This is why my repentances were never stable.
And my resolutions to control myself, to change
lasted for two weeks at the very most.

poem by Constantine P. Cavafy
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He Had Planned To Read

He had planned to read. Two or three books lie open,
books by historians, by poets.
But he read for barely ten minutes,
then gave it up, falling half-asleep on the sofa.
He's completely devoted to books
but he's twenty-three, and very good-looking;
and this afternoon Eros penetrated
his ideal flesh, his lips,
an erotic warmth penetrated
his lovely flesh
with no ridiculous shame about the form the pleasure took....

poem by Constantine P. Cavafy
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That's The Man

Unknown -a stranger in Antioch- the man from Edessa
writes and writes. And at last, there,
the final canto's done. That makes

eighty-three poems in all. But so much writing,
so much versifying, the intense strain
of phrasing in Greek, has worn the poet out,
and now everything has gone stale.

But a thought suddenly brings him out of his dejection:
the sublime 'That's the man'
which Lucian once heard in his sleep.

poem by Constantine P. Cavafy
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Very Seldom

He's an old man. Used up and bent,
crippled by time and indulgence,
he slowly walks along the narrow street.
But when he goes inside his house to hide
the shambles of his old age, his mind turns
to the share in youth that still belongs to him.

His verse is now recited by young men.
His visions come before their lively eyes.
Their healthy sensual minds,
their shapely taut bodies
stir to his perception of the beautiful.

poem by Constantine P. Cavafy
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In Church

I love the church: its labara,
its silver vessels, its candleholders,
the lights, the ikons, the pulpit.

Whenever I go there, into a church of the Greeks,
with its aroma of incense,
its liturgical chanting and harmony,
the majestic presence of the priests,
dazzling in their ornate vestments,
the solemn rhythm of their gestures-
my thoughts turn to the great glories of our race,
to the splendor of our Byzantine heritage.

poem by Constantine P. Cavafy
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