Giorgos Seferis Poems

Ephemeral issue of a vicious daemon and a harsh fate,
why do you force me to speak of things that it would be better for you not to know.

SILENUS TO MIDAS*
...

This sun was mine and yours; we shared it.
Who's suffering behind the golden silk, who's dying?
A woman beating her dry breasts cried out; `Cowards,
they've taken my children and torn them to shreds, you've
...

Flowers of the rock facing the green sea
with veins that reminded me of other loves
glowing in the slow fine rain,
flowers of the rock, figures
...

Shy nightingale, in the breathing of the leaves,
you who bestow the forest's musical coolness
on the sundered bodies, on the souls
of those who know they will not return.
...

All morning long we looked around the citadel*
starting from the shaded side, there where the sea,
green and without luster—breast of a slain peacock—
received us like time without an opening in it.
...

'our mind is a virgin forest of killed friends.
And if I talk to you with fairy tales and parables
it is because you listen to it more sweetly, and you can't talk of horror because it's alive
...

I have seen in the night
...

The angel —
three years we waited for him, attention riveted,
closely scanning
the pines the shore the stars.
One with the blade of the plough or the ship's keel
...

And yet we should consider how we go forward.
To feel is not enough, nor to think, nor to move
nor to put your body in danger in front of an old loophole
when scalding oil and molten lead furrow the walls.
...

Again with spring
she wore light colours
and with gentle steps
again with spring
...