Complete Poems (25 page)

Do not think, O Stranger, that I love hyperbole.

There are many places that have rich and fruitful fields.

But there is something special, as you’ll certainly agree,

               about the fruit and flowers of Nichori.

If you should wish to go with me inside the church

of the Virgin of Coumariés, forgive my zealotry

when I am there. Prayers, I daresay, win a different

               grace in pious Nichori.

If you cannot stay, O Stranger, then before you leave,

you must go, one Sunday, to the Quay of Gregory;

peace, and youth, and joy you’ll see, and you will know

               what it is, our Nichori.

With you, I think, all that is pleasant smiles on me,

in the mirror of your eyes there is reflected joy.

Stay, my light, and still I have not told you even half

of all that presses down upon my heart so amorous,

that rushes to my lips with just a single look from you.

If you wish it, do not speak to me, or say enchanting

words of love and adoration. ’Tis enough that you’re nearby,

that I tell you that I want you, that I’m near you, that the morning

dew that you breathe in, I breathe in, too; and if you find

that these too are excessive, ’tis enough I merely see you!

If souls, as they tell us, are immortal,

perhaps your spirit wanders near us, Stephanos,

and feels contentment when you hear your name

upon our lips, and when our faithful thoughts

are stirred by your beloved memory.

Stephanos, you’ve not been parted from us by the grave:

from us, with whom you nearly shared your life.

As children we would play together; our childish woes

and our joys we’d feel together; and then, young men,

we discovered life’s first pleasures all as one—

till two days ago, Stephanos, two days ago, and now

we have borne you, cold, to your last abode.

But no. You’re with us. The stone upon your grave

will be, for us, a delicate veil, diaphanous.

And though you’re lost to your friends’ eyes, their souls,

and memories, and hearts, will always see you

and keep you, Stephanos, their inseparable friend.

Aromas inspire me as music does,

as rhythm does, as do beautiful words,

and I delight when, in harmonious

verses, Baudelaire expresses

what the amazed spirit, even dimly,

feels amidst its sterile stirrings.

“A temple is what Nature is, where living

pillars every now and then pronounce

muddled words. Man goes through the center

of the crowded groves of symbols, which

observe him with familiar gazes.

“As drawn-out echoes, which from far away

commingle in a gloomy unity,

so, in a unity boundless as the dark

and as the light, there correspond

colors, noises, and aromas.

“There are fragrances as dewy as

the skin of children; as sweet as oboes;

grassy as meadows.

                         “Others are

rich, corrupt, triumphant:

they sing of the transports of the mind

and of the senses; they contain the outpouring

of infinite things—like ambergris,

and musk, gum benjamin, and frankincense.”

Do not believe only what you see.

The vision of poets is sharper still.

To them, Nature is a familiar garden.

In a shadowed paradise, those other

people grope along the cruel road.

The sole illumination, which like a fleeting

spark will sometimes light their way

at night, is a short-lived feeling of

a chance and irresistible approach—

brief nostalgia, momentary shiver,

dream of the sunrise hour, a joy

that has no cause, suddenly flowing

into the heart and just as suddenly fleeing.

… … … … … … … … … … …

one day of the dead girl, the phantom of a day.

Who he was, this inhuman man, history does not say.

Who Rhamanakti’s killer was, I do not know.

A sullen Persian governor insulting a people enslaved

as retaliation and as vengeance for the way

he is himself insulted by those who are in power;

or a supercilious Greek who sees in all the world

nothing but his Greece, and for a poor barbarian girl’s

tender feelings has no thought, nor for her innocent life’s

final yearning, so innocent.

… … … … … … … … … … …

Fearing what is commonplace,

I stifle many of my words.

In my heart are written many

poems; and I love the lays

that are there interred.

O first, pure, only liberty

of youth, penchant for pleasure!

O sweet drunkenness of senses!

I fear lest base banality

your forms divine dishonour.

Our universe has four great gates,

               which four angels keep.

One is North; across is South;

               the others West and East.

The gate of the East is radiant nacre;

               in front, an angel bright

wears a diamond crown and belt

               and stands upon pure agate.

South’s gate is purple amethyst.

               Its guardian angel holds

a magic staff of dark sapphire,

               and his feet are hid

by a turquoise cloud.

                         Upon a shore

               with fine red seashells spread

the Western angel stands and guards

               the gate of coral rare.

With hand-made roses is he wreathed,

               each rose of ruby pure.

The Northern gate is built of gold,

               its throne the entrance fronts

… … … … … … … …

An ancient Giant in earth’s innards dwells.

               Thirty are his hands

and his feet are thirty. His enormous neck

               thirty heads upholds

and each has twenty of the sharpest eyes

               for which the deepest gloom

of deepest earth is as the lighted day.

               He is idle, is indifferent.

He has unnumbered treasures; and great mines

               of silver, diamonds, gold.

His rare riches, his extraordinary riches

               he coolly watches with

his six hundred eyes, but sometimes, to enliven

               a century or so, he counts it.

And it comes to bore him, and two years yawn wide,

               and tired, he falls asleep.

His sleep continues for entire centuries;

               every dream a generation.

But of a sudden, with a start he wakes. Ephialtes—

               offspring of raw matter—

has disturbed his sleep, reflecting in the blurry

               mirror of his cold

callous thoughts unknown and dreadful phantoms.

               Then he unfolds

his monstrous limbs and with his sixty hands and feet

               strikes, kicks, the vault. And earth

is shaken from its groundwork; cities fall down,

               and all the rivers flood,

and fires flow like breakers down from the mountains.

               The earth opens and closes

and people tumble down and are entombed within.

               But now the giant stirs

awake, and as he rubs his monstrous orbs he sees

               that so much tumult

and so much confusion were absurd, all for

               a cheap shadow of a dream.

At his cowardice he laughs, at his great terror,

               and peaceful goes to bed

again, and with his thirty mouths he smiles.

I believe in the Hereafter. Material appetites

or love for the real don’t beguile me. It’s not habit

but instinct. The heavenly word will be added

to life’s imperfect sentence, otherwise inane.

Respite and reward will follow upon action.

When sight is closed forever more to Creation,

the eye will be opened in the presence of the Creator.

An immortal wave of life will flow from each and every

Gospel of Christ—wave of life uninterrupted.

Waiting, hidden for thousands of years

within the gloom of Egypt’s earth

beneath a silence so desperate

those charming mimiambs were bored to tears;

But now those times have passed away,

from the North have come savants;

the iambs’ tomb, their oblivion

are at an end. Their accents gay

return us to the jollity

of Greek streets and agoras;

and with them we enter the vigorous

life of a curious society.—

A bawd most wicked straightaway

meets us; she would lead astray

a faithful wife! But Metriche

knows how to keep her honor safe.

Then we spy another churl

who runs a certain establishment

and furiously charges a Phrygian

with corrupting his—School for Girls.

Two chatterers, elegant ladies,

visit the shrine of Asclepius;

the tastiest of their tête-à-têtes

enliven the temple enormously.

Into the leatherer’s shop we go—

lovely things heaped up in piles,

here you’ll find the latest styles—

accompanied by our fair Metrô.

Yet how much of these scrolls has been effaced;

how often a tart and graceful verse

has become the meal of vile worms.

Unhappy Herodas, who was made

for gaiety and for repartée—

has come to us so badly hurt!

Not for contempt were these luminaries bright

               born, lovely Circassian lass.

Not of anger, but of joy and love the lights,

                         generous givers of delight,

                         of pleasure the sweet promise.

Had they been made to spite an errant heart,

               and for destruction;

had they been earthward sent by an angry god;

               they would have some

other shape, and the heavens’ gentle firmament

               would not have lent its tender color,

the beneficent sun would never have consented

                         to grant them the flame so radiant

                         from its body of love and of fire.

… … … … … … … …

I know that they are all impoverished,

that these friends of mine should have

other ornaments, more distinguished

and more numerous, more grand.

But what do these words mean?

My walls have finer manners;

not for any gifts do they love me.

They
are not like men.

Besides, they know they’ll hold

my possessions for but a moment,

and me as well. My joys and woes

and whatever I have here below

will pass quickly. To gifts like these

the sturdy walls are indifferent.

They are long-lived and of my brief

life they ask for nothing.

I sold the rancid barley very dear.

This Rome is the kingdom of sheer

profit. And in April I arrived:

I’ve lost no time. In April I shall leave.

To me the sea seems rather tiresome;

enormous clouds are covering the sun.

So what? For me each rock is but a shell,

every ocean like a level field.

I have no fear of winds aslant the air.

At hurricanes I scoff, and laugh at wrecks.

Broad-boulevarded Alexandria

will greet me safe.… Mates, look out there!

Off the jug! Treating himself—the cheek!

After the voyage the soul thirsts for Samian.

King Ptolemy Philopator royally

plays host to Medon the sophist—

the king takes great pride in his guest,

researcher of the powers of the soul.

At another time, the sophist, very poor

in noxious Rome, offered a great

potentate his work. The latter said: “Take

this
mna
and go. It’s drivel and I’m bored.”

“O insolence, insolence! Studying the infinite,

I inscribed each searing sentiment,

all of my heart, into that

papyrus.…” But in his scorn for the dictator

he kept his wingèd utterances short.—

Do honor to Ptolemy Philopator.

When to the cemetery memory

directs your steps,

worship the sacred mystery

of our darkling future, devoutly.

Lift up your mind to the Lord.

Before you

the most narrow bed of slumbers infinite

lies beneath the pity of Jesus.