Constantine P. Cavafy Poems

For some people the day comes
when they have to declare the great Yes
or the great No. It's clear at once who has the Yes
ready within him; and saying it,
...

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 -
...

What are we waiting for, assembled in the forum?

The barbarians are due here today.
Why isn't anything happening in the senate?
...

Because gods perceive future things, men what is happening now,
but wise men perceive approaching things.

Philostratus, Life of Apollonius of Tyana, VIII, 7.
...

Said Myrtias (a Syrian student
in Alexandria; in the reign of
Augustus Constans and Augustus Constantius;
in part a pagan, and in part a christian);
...

When suddenly, at midnight, you hear
an invisible procession going by
with exquisite music, voices,
don't mourn your luck that's failing now,
...

The poet Phernazis is composing
the important part of his epic poem.
How Darius, son of Hystaspes,
assumed the kingdom of the Persians. (From him
...

Partly to verify an era,
partly also to pass the time,
last night I picked up a collection
of Ptolemaic epigrams to read.
...

I never found them again -- the things so quickly lost....
the poetic eyes, the pale
face.... in the dusk of the street....
...

Let me stop here. Let me, too, look at nature awhile.
The brilliant blue of the morning sea, of the cloudless sky,
the yellow shore; all lovely,
all bathed in light.
...