Constantine P Cavafy Short Poems
Famous Short Constantine P Cavafy Poems. Short poetry by famous poet Constantine P Cavafy. A collection of the all-time best Constantine P Cavafy short poems
by
Constantine P Cavafy
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.
Trans.
by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard
by
Constantine P Cavafy
Like beautiful bodies of the dead who had not grown old
and they shut them, with tears, in a magnificent mausoleum,
with roses at the head and jasmine at the feet --
this is what desires resemble that have passed
without fulfillment; with none of them having achieved
a night of sensual delight, or a bright morning.
by
Constantine P Cavafy
One monotonous day is followed
by another monotonous, identical day.
The same
things will happen, they will happen again --
the same moments find us and leave us.
A month passes and ushers in another month.
One easily guesses the coming events;
they are the boring ones of yesterday.
And the morrow ends up not resembling a morrow anymore.
by
Constantine P Cavafy
Apollonius was talking about
proper education and conduct with a young
man who was building a luxurious
house in Rhodes.
"As for me" said the Tyanian
at last, "when I enter a temple
however small it may be, I very much prefer
to see a statue of ivory and gold
than a clay and vulgar one in a large temple".
--
The "clay" and "vulgar"; the detestable:
that already some people (without enough training)
it deceives knavishly.
The clay and vulgar.
by
Constantine P Cavafy
Let me stop here.
Let me, too, look at nature awhile.
The brilliant blue of the morning sea, of the cloudless sky,
the yellow shore; all lovely,
all bathed in light.
Let me stand here.
And let me pretend I see all this
(I really did see it for a minute when I first stopped)
and not my usual day-dreams here too,
my memories, those images of sensual pleasure.
trans.
by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard
by
Constantine P Cavafy
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.
by
Constantine P Cavafy
The sea took a sailor to its depths.
--
His mother, unsuspecting, goes and lights
a tall candle before the Virgin Mary
for his speedy return and for fine weather --
and always she turns her ear to the wind.
But while she prays and implores,
the icon listens, solemn and sad,
knowing that the son she expects will no longer return.
by
Constantine P Cavafy
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.
by
Constantine P Cavafy
With words, with countenance, and with manners
I shall build an excellent panoply;
and in this way I shall face evil men
without having any fear or weakness.
They will want to harm me.
But of those
who approach me none will know
where my wounds are, my vulnerable parts,
under all the lies that will cover me.
--
Boastful words of Aemilianus Monae.
Did he ever build this panoply?
In any case, he did not wear it much.
He died in Sicily, at the age of twenty-seven.
by
Constantine P Cavafy
In the golden bull that Alexios Comnenos issued
to prominently honor his mother,
the very sagacious Lady Anna Dalassené—
distinguished in her works, in her ways—
there are many words of praise:
here let us convey of them
a beautiful, noble phrase
"Those cold words 'mine' or 'yours' were never spoken.
"
by
Constantine P Cavafy
We interrupt the work of the gods,
hasty and inexperienced beings of the moment.
In the palaces of Eleusis and Phthia
Demeter and Thetis start good works
amid high flames and dense smoke.
But
always Metaneira rushes from the king's
chambers, disheveled and scared,
and always Peleus is fearful and interferes.
by
Constantine P Cavafy
Every so often he vows to start a better life.
But when night comes with her own counsels,
with her compromises, and with her promises;
but when night comes with her own power
of the body that wants and demands, he returns,
forlorn, to the same fatal joy.
by
Constantine P Cavafy
Even if you cannot shape your life as you want it,
at least try this
as much as you can; do not debase it
in excessive contact with the world,
in the excessive movements and talk.
Do not debase it by taking it,
dragging it often and exposing it
to the daily folly
of relationships and associations,
until it becomes burdensome as an alien life.
by
Constantine P Cavafy
Without consideration, without pity, without shame
they have built great and high walls around me.
And now I sit here and despair.
I think of nothing else: this fate gnaws at my mind;
for I had many things to do outside.
Ah why did I not pay attention when they were building the walls.
But I never heard any noise or sound of builders.
Imperceptibly they shut me from the outside world.
by
Constantine P Cavafy
In these darkened rooms, where I spend
oppresive days, I pace to and fro
to find the windows.
-- When a window
opens, it will be a consolation.
--
But the windows cannot be found, or I cannot
find them.
And maybe it is best that I do not find them.
Maybe the light will be a new tyranny.
Who knows what new things it will reveal.
by
Constantine P Cavafy
He wrapped them carefully, neatly
in costly green silk.
Roses of ruby, lilies of pearl,
violets of amethyst.
As he himself judged,
as he wanted them, they look beautiful to him; not as he saw
or studied them in nature.
He will leave them in the safe,
a sample of his daring and skillful craft.
When a buyer enters the shop
he takes from the cases other wares and sells -- superb jewels --
bracelets, chains, necklaces, and rings.
by
Constantine P Cavafy
My dear old father,
who always loved me the same;
my dear old father I lament
who died the day before yesterday, just before dawn.
Jesus Christ, it is my daily effort
to observe the precepts
of Thy most holy church in all my acts,
in all words, in all thoughts.
And all those who renounce Thee
I shun.
-- But now I lament;
I bewail, Christ, for my father
although he was -- a horrible thing to say --
a priest at the accursed Serapeum.
by
Constantine P Cavafy
I did not restrain myself.
I let go entirely and went.
To the pleasures that were half real
and half wheeling in my brain,
I went into the lit night.
And I drank of potent wines, such as
the valiant of voluptuousness drink.
by
Constantine P Cavafy
For some people the day comes
when they have to declare the great Yes
or the great No.
It's clear at once who has the Yes
ready within him; and saying it,
he goes from honor to honor, strong in his conviction.
He who refuses does not repent.
Asked again,
he'd still say no.
Yet that no-the right no-
drags him down all his life.
by
Constantine P Cavafy
I do not question whether I am happy or unhappy.
Yet there is one thing that I keep gladly in mind --
that in the great addition (their addition that I abhor)
that has so many numbers, I am not one
of the many units there.
In the final sum
I have not been calculated.
And this joy suffices me.
by
Constantine P Cavafy
Amid fear and suspicions,
with agitated mind and frightened eyes,
we melt and plan how to act
to avoid the certain
danger that so horribly threatens us.
And yet we err, this was not in our paths;
the messages were false
(or we did not hear, or fully understand them).
Another catastrophe, one we never imagined,
sudden, precipitous, falls upon us,
and unprepared -- there is no more time -- carries us off.
by
Constantine P Cavafy
Body, remember not only how much you were loved,
not only the beds on which you lay,
but also those desires which for you
plainly glowed in the eyes,
and trembled in the voice -- and some
chance obstacle made them futile.
Now that all belongs to the past,
it is almost as if you had yielded
to those desires too -- remember,
how they glowed, in the eyes looking at you;
how they trembled in the voice, for you, remember, body.
by
Constantine P Cavafy
I never found them again -- the things so quickly lost.
.
.
.
the poetic eyes, the pale
face.
.
.
.
in the dusk of the street.
.
.
.
I never found them again -- the things acquired quite by chance,
that I gave up so lightly;
and that later in agony I wanted.
The poetic eyes, the pale face,
those lips, I never found again.
by
Constantine P Cavafy
This little house sows the degrees
By which wood can return to trees.
Weather has stained the shingles dark
And indistinguishable from bark.
Lichen that long ago adjourned
Its lodging here has now returned.
And if you look in through the door
You see a sapling through the floor.
by
Constantine P Cavafy
Return often and take me,
beloved sensation, return and take me --
when the memory of the body awakens,
and an old desire runs again through the blood;
when the lips and the skin remember,
and the hands feel as if they touch again.
Return often and take me at night,
when the lips and the skin remember.
.
.
.