C. P. Cavafy: “Ithaka”

Video kudos: babyloniaman

C. P. Cavafy: “Walls”

Read by Charles Bryant.

Constantin Cavafy: “Waiting for the Barbarians”

Περιμένοντας τους βαρβάρους, Κωνσταντίνος Π. Καβάφης (1904)

Constantin Cavafy (b. 29 April 1863)

English translation read by Hari Politopoulos. Video kudos: Palamas12

Constantin Cavafy: “Days of 1903″

 

DAYS OF 1903

I never found them again–all lost so quickly…
the poetic eyes, the pale face…
in the darkening street…

I never found them again—mine entirely by chance,
and so easily given up,
then longed for so painfully.
The poetic eyes, the pale face,
those lips—I never found them again.

—C. P. Cavafy

Translation by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard

Photo credit:  5alexandrie1 by wispalex

C. P. Cavafy: “Walls”

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 have not noticed!
But I never heard the builders, not a sound.
Imperceptibly they have closed me off from the outside world.

Constantine P. Cavafy (1986)

Translation by Edmund Keeley & Philip Sherrard

Photo credit: 365 Days – Day 18 – Brick Wall by Auntie P