Modern Greek poetry

Constantine P. Cavafy,  (Greek Κωνσταντίνος Π. Καβάφης)  was ONE of the most distinguished Greek  poets who worked as a journalist  and civil servant(29 April 1863- 29 April 1933).  He published 154 poems; dozens more remained incomplete or in sketch form.

DEATH AND RESURRECTION
 	OF CONSTANTINOS PALAEOLOGOS

		by
	   Odysseas Elytis

               I

As he stood there erect before the Gate 
and impregnable in his sorrow

Far from the world where his spirit sought
to bring Paradise to his measure  
And harder even than stone  
for no one had ever looked
on him tenderly - at times his crooked teeth
whitened strangely

And as he passed by with his gaze a little
beyond mankind and from them all
extracted One who smiled on him
The Real one
Whom death could never seize

He took care to pronounce the word
sea clearly that all the dolphins
within it might shine
And the desolation so great it might
contain all of God
and every  waterdrop ascending steadfastly toward
the sun

As a young man he had seen gold glittering
and gleaming on the shoulders of the great
And one night
he remembers
during a great storm the neck of the sea
roared so it turned murky
but he would not submit to it

The world's an oppressive place to live through
yet with a little pride it's worth it.

        II

Dear God what now
Who had to battle with thousands
and not only his loneliness
Who?
He who knew with a single word 
how to slake the thirst of entire worlds
What?

From whom they had taken everything
And his sandals with their criss-crossed 
straps and his pointed trident
and the wall he mounted every afternoon like
an unruly and pitching boat
to hold the reigns against the weather

And a handful of vervain
which he had rubbed on a girl's cheek
at midnight
to kiss her
(how the waters of the moon gurled
on the stone steps three cliff-lengths 
above the sea...)

Noon out of night
And not one person by his side
Only his faithful words that mingled
all their colors to leave in his hand
a lance of white light

And opposite
along the whole wall's length
a host of heads poured in plaster
as far as his eyes could see

"Noon out of night - all life a radiance!"
he shouted and rushed into the horde
dragging behind him an endless golden line

And at once he felt 
the final pallor 
overmastering him
as it hastened from afar.

            III

Now
as the sun's wheel turned more and more swiftly
the courtyards plunged into winter and once
again emerged red from the geranium

And the small cool domes
like blue medusae
reached each time higher to the silverwork
the wind so delicately worked as a painting
for other times more distant

Virgin maidens
their breasts glowing a summer dawn
brought him branches of fresh palm leaves
and those of the myrtle uprooted
from the depths of the sea

Dripping iodine
While under his feet he heard
the prows of black ships
sucked into the great whirlpool
the ancient and smoked seacraft
from which still erect with riveted gaze
the Mothers of God stood rebuking

Horses overturned on dumpheaps
a rabble of buildings large and small
debris and dust flaming in the air

And there lying prone
always with an unbroken word
between his teeth
                   Himself
                the last of the Hellenes!

GIFT SILVER POEM

	I know that all this is worthless  and that the language
	I speak doesn't have an alphabet
	
	Since the sun and the waves are a syllabic script
	which can be deciphered only in the years of sorrow and exile
	
	And the motherland  a fresco with successive overlays
	frankish or slavic which, should you try to restore,
	you are immediately sent to prison and
	held responsible

	To a crowd of foreign Powers  always through
	the intervention of your own

	As it happens for the disasters
	
	But  let's imagine that in an old days' threshing-floor
	which might be in an apartment-complex children
	are playing and  whoever loses

	Should, according to the rules, tell the others
	and give them a truth

	Then everyone ends up  holding in his
	hand a small
	
	Gift, silver poem.


				Odysseas Elytis
			"The Tree of Light and The Fourteenth Beauty"

	Translation from Greek: Marios Dikaiakos