Cavafy Bot

One candle is enough. Tonight the room should not have too much light.

So now he spends his days full of anxiety, advising the Persians, explaining what they should do to conquer Greece.

O memory, I begged for you to help me most in making the young face I loved appear the way it was.

I will give anyone who wants them the lion and the horses, the coral Pan, the elegant palace, the gardens of Tyre.

But when the great crisis comes, our boldness and resolution vanish; our spirit falters, paralyzed.

Art knows how to shape forms of Beauty, almost imperceptibly completing life.

He was just, wise, courageous. In addition he was that best of things, Hellenic.

But through all his distress, all the turmoil, the poetic idea comes and goes insistently.

May you stop at Phoenician trading stations to buy fine things.

There was still time, he said, to save himself.

Why are the streets and squares emptying so rapidly, everyone going home so lost in thought?

The Alexandrians knew of course that this was all mere words, all theatre.

He goes back, lost, to the same fatal pleasure.

The right side of his forehead is almost covered by his hair, his lovely hair.

He disappeared under the arcades, among the shadows and the evening lights.

Deep in my nights, in secret, encountered . . .

I see the black ruins of my life, here, where I’ve spent so many years.

Do not believe only what you see. The eye of the poet is sharper.

And now? Now despair and grief.

Many poems are written in my heart; and those interred songs are the ones that I love.