Most of all I wanted to see your eyes

                           Yannis Keats

                                   +--------`               by Angelos Sikelianos

A branch, the hand of Apollo,

The plane tree’s polished, broad bough,
Spread above you, may it bring you
The universe’s immortal peace.

You'd meet me on the broad and shining shore

            Of Pylos, so I'd planned,

With Mentor's tall ship pulled up on the beach

          Snug in the sand.

We would be bound, as those who sailed with the gods,

         In the winged friendship of youth,

And would take our seats in the stone thrones that Time

         And custom had made smooth

And meet that man who still in the third generation

        Reigned serene, a sage

Whose tales of travels and holy decrees had ripened

        In his mind with age --

At dawn we'd attend the sacrifice to the gods,
        The ritual slaughterers
Of the three-year old heifers, and hear the single cry
        That rose from his three daughters.

When the axe thwacked, and the black-fringed, slow-rolling eye

        Drowned in a swoon

Of darkness, and the gilt horns were rendered idle,

      A hazy half moon.

My love imagined you, as a sister her brother

      In your virginal bath,

How Polycaste rinsed your naked body and dressed you

      In a robe of fine cloth.

I thought to prod you a little with my foot

      As dawn was about to break:

The gleaming chariot's yoked for us and ready.

     No time to lose! Awake!

And to spend all day in the talk that comes and goes,

     Or silence, when no one spoke,

While we drove the horses who were always leaning one way

     Or another against the yoke,

But most of all I wanted to see your eyes,

     Your deer-like eyes, behold

The palace of Menelaus, and forget themselves

     In bronze and the gleam of gold.

Unwavering gaze, sinking the sight so deep,

     You'd never remember

The figured silver, the ivory, gilded or whte,

    The heavy amber,

And I thought that I would say in a hushed voice

    Leaning close to your ear,

Watch out, my friend, because in a moment, soon,

    Helen will appear

Before our very eyes, the one and only

    Daughter of the Swan,

And then we will sink our eyelids in the river

    Of Oblivion.

                              ●

So brightly I saw you; but what grassy roads

     Have led me to your tomb!

And the blazing roses with which I strew your grave

    And make all Rome abloom,

Light the way unto your golden songs

    As though they were the brave,

Armed bodies that turn to dust before one's eyes

    In an ancient, new-breached grave,

And all the worth treasure of Mycenae

    The golden plunder

I thought to lay before you -- goblet, sword,

    And diadem -- past wonder,

A mask on your dead beauty like the mask

    That covered the face

Of the king of the Achaeans,

    Hammered upon Death's trace.

Trans. A. E. Stallings