By
C. P. Cavafy
But
Wise Men Apprehend What is Imminent
The
gods perceive what lies in the future, and mortals, what occurs in
the present, but wise men apprehend what is imminent. Philostratus.
Mortal
men perceive things as they happen.
What
lies in the future the gods perceive,
gull
and sole possessors of all enlightenment.
Of
all the future holds, wise men apprehend
what
is imminent. Their hearing,
sometimes,
in moments of complete
absorption
in their studies, is disturbed. The secret call
of
events that are about to happen reaches them..
And
they listen to it reverently. While in the street
outside,
the people hear nothing at all.
Voices
Imagined
voices, and beloved, too,
of
those who died, or of those who are
lost
unto us like the dead.
Sometimes
in our dreams they speak to us:
sometimes
in its thought the mind will hear them.
And
with their sound for a moment there return
sounds
from the first poetry of our life –
like
music, in the night, far off, that fades away.
Come Back
Come
back often and take hold of me,
beloved
feeling come back and take hold of me,
when
the memory of the body reawakens,
and
old longing once more passes through the blood;
when
the lips and skin remember,
and
the hands feel like they're touching once again.
Come
back often and take hold of me at night,
when
the lips and skin remember . . .
Translations
by Daniel Mendelsohn.
