Half an Hour
I never had you, nor I suppose
will I ever have you. A few words, an approach,
as in the bar the other day—nothing more.
It’s sad, I admit. But we who serve Art,
sometimes with the mind’s intensity,
can create—but of course only for a short time—
pleasure that seems almost physical.
That’s how in the bar the other day—
mercifully helped by alcohol—
I had half an hour that was totally erotic.
And I think you understood this
and stayed slightly longer on purpose.
That was very necessary. Because
with all the imagination, with all the magic alcohol,
I needed to see your lips as well,
needed your body near me.
At the Theatre
I got bored looking at the stage
and raised my eyes to the box circle.
In one of the boxes I saw you
with your strange beauty, your dissolute youthfulness.
My thoughts turned back at once
to all they’d told me about you that afternoon;
my mind and body were aroused.
And as I gazed enthralled
at your languid beauty, your languid youthfulness,
your tastefully discriminating dress,
in my imagination I kept picturing you
the way they’d talked about you that afternoon.
The Photograph
In this obscene photograph sold secretly
in the street (so the policeman won’t see)
in this lewd photograph,
how could there be such a dream-like face?
How did you get in there?
Who knows what a degrading, vulgar life you lead;
how horrible the surroundings must have been
when you posed to have this picture taken;
what a cheap soul you must have.
But in spite of all this, and even more, you remain for me
the dream-like face, the figure
shaped for and dedicated to the Greek kind of sensual pleasure—
that’s how you remain for me
and how my poetry speaks about you.
On the Stairs
As I was going down those ill-famed stairs
you were coming in the door, and for a second
I saw your unfamiliar face and you saw mine.
Then I hid so you wouldn’t see me again, and you
hurried past me, hiding your face,
and slipped inside the ill-famed house
where you couldn’t have found sensual pleasure any more
than I did.
And yet the love you were looking for, I had to give you;
the love I was looking for—so you tired,
knowing eyes implied—you had to give me.
Our bodies sensed and sought each other;
our blood and skin understood.
But, flustered, we both hid ourselves.
On Hearing of Love
On hearing about powerful love, respond, be moved
like an aesthete. Only, fortunate as you’ve been,
remember how much your imagination created for you.
This first, and then the rest—the lesser loves—
that you experienced and enjoyed
in your life: the more real and tangible.
Of loves like these you were not deprived.
Translated by Edmund Keeley/Philip Sherrard
http://www.cavafy.com/index.asp
Sophia
