Constantine P. Cavafy (1863-1933)
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 not have noticed! But I never heard the builders, not a sound. Imperceptibly they have closed me off from the outside world. (translated by Memas Kolaitis)
AN OLD MAN At the noisy end of the cafe, head bent over the table, an old man sits alone, a newspaper in front of him. And in the miserable banality of old age he thinks how little he enjoyed the years when he had strength, eloquence, and looks. He knows he's aged a lot: he sees it, feels it. Yet it seems he was young just yesterday. So brief an interval, so brief. And he thinks of Prudence, how it fooled him, how he always believed - what madness - that cheat who said: "Tomorrow. You have plenty of time." He remembers impulses bridled, the joy he sacrificed. Every chance he lost now mocks his senseless caution. But so much thinking, so much remembering makes the old man dizzy. He falls asleep, his head resting on the cafe table. (translated by Memas Kolaitis)
RETURN 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... (translated by George Barbanis)
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Revised: December 13, 1997