Selected Poems Quotes

“In these dark rooms I pass
such listless days, I wander up and down
looking for the windows - when a window opens
there will be some relief.
But there are no windows, or at least
I cannot find them. And perhaps it's just as well.
Perhaps the light would prove another torment.
Who knows what new things it would reveal?

("The Windows")”
― C.P. Cavafy, Selected Poems

“If you cannot fashion your life as you would like,
endeavour to do this at least,
as much as you can: do not trivialize it
through too much contact with the world,
through too much activity and chatter.

Do not trivialize your life by parading it,
running around and displaying it
in the daily stupidity
of cliques and gatherings
until it becomes like a tiresome guest.

("As Much As You Can")”
― C.P. Cavafy, Selected Poems

“The god abandons Antony

When at the hour of midnight
an invisible choir is suddenly heard passing
with exquisite music, with voices ―
Do not lament your fortune that at last subsides,
your life’s work that has failed, your schemes that have proved illusions.
But like a man prepared, like a brave man,
bid farewell to her, to Alexandria who is departing.
Above all, do not delude yourself, do not say that it is a dream,
that your ear was mistaken.
Do not condescend to such empty hopes.
Like a man for long prepared, like a brave man,
like the man who was worthy of such a city,
go to the window firmly,
and listen with emotion
but not with the prayers and complaints of the coward
(Ah! supreme rapture!)
listen to the notes, to the exquisite instruments of the mystic choir,
and bid farewell to her, to Alexandria whom you are losing.”
― C.P. Cavafy, Selected Poems

“Without compunction, pity or shame,
they've built towering walls around me.

Desperate, I sit and think one thing:
alone here this fate confounds me.

For there were many things I'd hoped to do out there.
With all the construction, how was I not aware?

Yet the crack and clang of hammers I never once heard.
Imperceptibly they've confined me from the outside world.

("Walls")”
― C.P. Cavafy, Selected Poems

“Desires Like the beautiful bodies of those who died young,
tearfully interred in a grand mausoleum
with roses by their heads and jasmine at their feet –
so seem those desires that have passed
without fulfilment; without a single night
of pleasure, or one of its radiant mornings.”
― Constantinos P. Cavafis, Selected Poems

“He Vows Every now and then he vows to live a better life.
But when night comes with her own counsels,
with her promises and her compromises,
when night comes with her power
over the body that seeks and yearns,
he returns, lost, to the same fatal pleasures.”
― Constantinos P. Cavafis, Selected Poems

“Remember, Body… Body, remember not only how deeply you were loved,
not only the many beds where you lay,
but also those desires that flashed
openly in their eyes
or trembled in the voice – and were thwarted
by some chance impediment.
Now that all of them are locked away in the past,
it almost seems as if you surrendered
to even those pre-empted desires – how they flashed, remember,
in the eyes of those who looked at you, how they trembled
in the voice for you, remember, body.”
― Constantinos P. Cavafis, Selected Poems

“Morning Sea Let me stop right here. Let me, too, have a look at nature:
the morning sea and the cloudless sky,
both a luminous blue, the yellow shore, all of it
beautiful, and in such magnificent light. Let me stop right here. Let me pretend this is actually
what I’m seeing (I really did see it, when I first stopped)
and not, here too, more of those fantasies of mine,
more of those memories, those voluptuous illusions.”
― Constantinos P. Cavafis, Selected Poems

“do not hurry the journey at all:
better that it lasts for many years
and you arrive an old man on the island,
rich from all that you have gained on the way,
not counting on Ithaca for riches. For Ithaca gave you the splendid voyage:
without her you would never have embarked.
She has nothing more to give you now. And though you find her poor, she has not misled you;
you having grown so wise, so experienced from your travels,
by then you will have learned what Ithacas mean.”
― Constantinos P. Cavafis, Selected Poems

“Done Amid fear and suspicion,
with startled minds and frightened eyes,
we pine and scheme over what steps to take
to avoid the certain
danger that threatens us so horribly.
Yet we are wrong. This was not the danger in store;
the portents were false
(or we never heard them, or failed to construe them properly).
It’s some other disaster, precipitous, violent,
one we hadn’t imagined,
that suddenly takes us unawares, and –
there’s no time now – overcomes us.”
― Constantinos P. Cavafis, Selected Poems

“The Tomb of Lanes Marcus, the Lanes whom you loved is not here
in this tomb where you visit and weep for hours.
The Lanes whom you loved is nearer, Marcus,
when you close yourself in your room and gaze on his portrait;
that image preserved all that was worthy in him;
that image preserved all that you loved. Do you remember, Marcus, when you brought
from the proconsul’s palace the famous painter from Cyrene,
and as soon as he laid eyes on your friend,
he tried to persuade you with his artist’s cunning
that he should draw him, without question, as Hyacinth
(that way the portrait would garner more fame)? But your Lanes didn’t put his beauty on loan like that;
firmly opposing the man, he demanded to be portrayed
not as Hyacinth, nor as anyone else,
but as Lanes, son of Rhametichus, an Alexandrian.”
― Constantinos P. Cavafis, Selected Poems

“One of Their Gods When one of them passed through the forum
of Seleucia just as night began to fall,
young, tall, perfect in his beauty,
with the joy of imperishability in his eyes
and his aromatic black hair,
the passers-by would stare,
asking each other if they knew the man:
was he a Greek from Syria, or a foreigner?
But some, who watched with greater attention,
understood and drew aside for him to pass;
and as he vanished under the arcades,
amid the shadow and light of evening,
proceeding to that neighbourhood
which comes alive only at night, with orgies and debauchery,
every kind of drunkenness and lust,
they wondered which of Them he might be,
and for which of his suspect passions
had he come down to the streets of Seleucia
from the Venerable and Sacred Abodes.”
― Constantinos P. Cavafis, Selected Poems

“Return often and take me,
beloved sensation, return and take me –
when the body’s memory awakens,
and old longings pulse again in my blood,
when lips and skin remember,
and hands could almost touch again. Return often and take me at night,
when lips and skin remember.”
― Constantinos P. Cavafis, Selected Poems

“Painted Things I love my work and take pains with it. But today
I find the slow pace of composition discouraging.
The weather has got into me. It just gets darker
and darker. Non-stop wind and rain.
I’d rather watch than write.
I’m looking at this painting now:
it shows a handsome boy lying near a spring,
out of breath from running.
Such a beautiful boy! And such a divine noon
which has taken him and induced him to sleep!
I sit and gaze like this for a long time.
Immersed again in art, I recover from the labour of creating it.”
― Constantinos P. Cavafis, Selected Poems

“I will not fear my passions, like a coward;
I will give my body entirely to pleasure,
to dreamed-of joys, the most brazen
erotic desires, the most depraved passions in my blood,
all without fear.”
― Constantinos P. Cavafis, Selected Poems

“The Footsteps On an ebony bedstead
adorned with eagles made of coral,
Nero lies deep in sleep – quiet, unconscious, happy:
in the prime of his body’s vigour;
in the beautiful ardour of his youth. But in the alabaster hall
that holds the ancient shrine of the Ahenobarbi,
the Lares of his house are anxious.
These minor household gods are trembling,
trying to conceal their already negligible bodies.
For they heard a terrible noise,
a deadly sound spiralling up the staircase,
iron-soled footsteps shaking the steps.
The miserable Lares, near-fainting now,
huddle in the corner of the shrine,
jostling and stumbling over each other,
one little god falling over the next,
for they knew what sort of noise it was;
they recognize, by now, the footsteps of the Furies.”
― Constantinos P. Cavafis, Selected Poems

“Monotony One monotonous day follows another
monotonous day, without change. The same
things happen, then happen again.
The same moments approach, then grow distant. A month passes and brings another month.
Anyone can guess what’s coming after:
all the tedious events from the day before,
until tomorrow looks nothing like tomorrow.”
― Constantinos P. Cavafis, Selected Poems

“The Funeral of Sarpedon Zeus is heavy with grief. Sarpedon
is dead at Patroclus’ hands and, right now,
the son of Menoetius and his Achaeans are setting out
to steal the corpse and desecrate it. But Zeus will not allow it.
He had left his beloved child alone
and now he’s lost – for such the Law demanded.
But at least he will honour him in death.
Behold: he sends Phoebus down to the field
with orders to care for the body. Phoebus lifts the hero’s corpse with reverence
and pity, and bears him to the river.
He washes away the blood and dust
and closes the wounds, careful
not to leave a scar; he pours balm
of ambrosia over the body and clothes him
in resplendent Olympian robes.
He blanches the skin and with a comb of pearl
straightens the raven-black hair.
He lays him out, arranging the lovely limbs. The youth seems a king, a charioteer,
twenty-five or twenty-six years old –
relishing his moment of victory,
with the swiftest stallions, upon a golden chariot
in a grand competition. Phoebus, completing his assignment,
calls on his two siblings,
Sleep and Death, commanding them
to carry the body to Lycia, land of riches. So the two brothers, Sleep and Death,
set out on foot to transport the body
to Lycia, land of riches.
And at the door of the king’s palace
they hand over the glorious body
and return to their affairs. As they receive him into the palace
they begin laments and tributes, processions
and libations flowing from sacred vessels
and everything that befits such a sad funeral;
then skilled craftsmen from the city
and artists well known for their work in marble
arrive to fashion the tomb and the stele.”
― Constantinos P. Cavafis, Selected Poems

“The Windows In these dark rooms where I pass
such listless days, I wander up and down
looking for the windows – when a window opens
there will be some relief.
But there are no windows, or at least
I cannot find them. And perhaps it’s just as well.
Perhaps the light would prove another torment.
Who knows what new things it would reveal?”
― Constantinos P. Cavafis, Selected Poems

“Old Men’s Souls Within their ancient, decrepit bodies
the souls of old men wallow.
Poor things, so full of sorrow:
how bored with the wretched life they bear,
yet how they cherish it and how they fear
its loss, these contrary and befuddled
souls, tragicomically huddled
inside their ancient, desiccated hides.”
― Constantinos P. Cavafis, Selected Poems