Constantine P. Cavafy Poems
The First Step
The young poet Evmenis
complained one day to Theocritus:
"I've been writing for two years now
and I've composed only one idyll.
It's my single completed work.
I see, sadly, that the... more
Poet: Constantine P. Cavafy rating:  Of The Shop
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... more
Poet: Constantine P. Cavafy rating: Half An Hour
I never had you, nor will I ever have you
I suppose. A few words, an approach
as in the bar yesterday, and nothing more.
It is, undeniably, a pity. But we who serve Art
sometimes with intensity of... more
Poet: Constantine P. Cavafy rating: The Bandaged Shoulder
He said that he had hurt himself on a wall or that he had fallen.
But there was probably another reason
for the wounded and bandaged shoulder.
With a somewhat abrupt movement,
to bring down from... more
Poet: Constantine P. Cavafy rating: Voices
Ideal and beloved voices
of those who are dead, or of those
who are lost to us like the dead.
Sometimes they speak to us in our dreams;
sometimes in thought the mind hears them.
And with... more
Poet: Constantine P. Cavafy rating: Poseidonians
The Poseidonians forgot the Greek language
after so many centuries of mingling
with Tyrrhenians, Latins, and other foreigners.
The only thing surviving from their ancestors
was a Greek festival,... more
Poet: Constantine P. Cavafy rating:
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