MY VERSES

Translation by Peter J. King and Andrea Christofidou -- In http://users.ox.ac.uk/~shil0124/poems/nepenthe.htm

My verses, children of my blood.
They speak, but I supply the words
like fragments of my heart,
I offer them like tears from my eyes.

They go with bitter smiles
when I recount so much of life.
I girdle them with sun and day and sun
for when I'm overtaken by the night.

They fix the limits of the sky and earth.
And yet my sons still wonder what is missing
always bored, worn down,
the only mother they have known is Grief.

I pour out the laughter of the sweetest tune,
the aimless passion of the flute;
to them I am an unsuspecting king
who's lost his people's love.

They waste away, they fade away, yet
never cease their quiet lamentation.
Pass by, Mortal, with averted gaze;
Lethe, carry me in your boat to bathe.

RETURN

Translation by Peter J. King and Andrea Christofidou -- In http://users.ox.ac.uk/~shil0124/poems/nepenthe.htm

In your current is the laughter of the gods,
Saronica immortal, the blessing of our ship,
like your deep calm, and just as deep the tempest
we'd have heard here.

Beneath the hoar-frost, body damply torpid,
the dove that's Athens shivers,
is enraptured, and awaits the distant sunrise
like a bride.

Where the clouds clear, there the sky is Pegasus' flank,
as fair as the fate of the Parthenon;
Zeus inverts a glass to spill the
flood of dreamlight.

Prodigal, I arrive a child again to you, to bend
before the breeze just like a flower;
earth, sky, and sea of Attica, to you I'll always
owe the Song!

NOBILITY

Translation by Peter J. King and Andrea Christofidou -- In http://users.ox.ac.uk/~shil0124/poems/nepenthe.htm

Make your pain into a harp.
Become a nightingale,
become a flower.
When bitter years arrive,
make your pain into a harp
and sing the one song.

Don't bind your wound
but with the branches of the rose.
I give you wanton myrrh
- for balm - and opium.
Don't bind your wound,
your purple blood.

Tell the gods to "let me die!"
but hold on to the glass.
Buck against your days when
there's a festival for you.
Tell the gods to "let me die!"
but say it with a laugh.

Make your pain into a harp.
Refresh your lips
at the lips of your wound.
One dawn, one evening,
make your pain into a harp
and laugh, and die.

BALLADE

TO THE FORGOTTEN POETS OF THE AGES

Translation by Peter J. King and Andrea Christofidou -- In http://users.ox.ac.uk/~shil0124/poems/nepenthe.htm

Detested by both men and gods,
like nobles who have bitterly decayed,
the Verlaines wither; wealth remains
to them, of rich and silvery rhyme.
With "Les Chatiments" the Hugos are intoxicated
by their terrible Olympian revenge. But I shall write a sorrowful
ballade to the forgotten poets.

Though the Poes have lived in misery,
and though the Baudelaires have suffered living deaths,
they ve all been granted Immortality.
Yet no-one now remembers,
and the deepest darkness has completely buried,
every poetaster who produced limp poetry.
But I make as an offering this reverent
ballade to the forgotten poets.

The world's disdain is heaped on them,
but they pass by, unyielding, pallid,
sacrifices to the tragic fraud that
out there somewhere Glory waits for them,
that wise and merry virgin.
But knowing that they re all due for oblivion,
I weep nostalgically this sorrowful
ballade to the forgotten poets.

And off in some far future epoch:
"What forgotten poet" I should like it to be asked
"has written such a beggarly
ballade to the forgotten poets?"

TREE

Translation by Peter J. King and Andrea Christofidou -- In http://users.ox.ac.uk/~shil0124/poems/nepenthe.htm

With calm, indifferent brow
I'll greet the afternoons, the dawns.

A tree, I'll stand and gaze at both
the tempest and the azure sky.

I'll say that life's the coffin
in which people's joy and sorrow die.

TONIGHT THE MOON...

Translation by Peter J. King and Andrea Christofidou -- In http://users.ox.ac.uk/~shil0124/poems/nepenthe.htm

Tonight the moon will fall upon
the strand, a heavy pearl.
And over me will play the mad
mad moonlight.

The ruby wave will shatter
at my feet, and scatter all the stars.
From my palms two doves
will have been born;

they'll rise -- two silver birds --,
be filled -- two cups -- with moonlight,
sprinkle moonlight on my shoulders,
on my hair.

The sea is molten gold.
I'll launch my dream to sail
upon a ca&idieresis;que. I'll tread a diamond
into gravel, glistening.

The encircling light will seem to pierce
my heart, a heavy pearl.
And I shall laugh. And then I'll weep... And there,
there's the moonlight!

A CLERK

Translation by Peter J. King and Andrea Christofidou -- In http://users.ox.ac.uk/~shil0124/poems/nepenthe.htm

The hours have faded me, found once again
leaning across the thankless table.
(The sun slips through the window in the wall that
faces me, and plays.)

Doubled up, I grope for breath
in the dust of all my papers.
(Life pulses sweetly and its thousand voices rise
from the freedom of the street.)

My eyes and mind are weary and disturbed,
but still I write.
(I know that in the vase beside me are two glowing lilies.
As if they've come up from a tomb.)

ATHENS

Translation by Peter J. King and Andrea Christofidou -- In http://users.ox.ac.uk/~shil0124/poems/nepenthe.htm

A sweet hour. Athens sprawls like a hetaira
offering herself to April.
Sensuous scents are in the air,
the spirit waits for nothing any more.

The silver of the evening's eyelids
droops, grows heavy up above the houses.
Queenlike the Acropolis puts on
the sunset's crimson like a robe.

The first star rises with a kiss of light.
A zephyr by Ilissus falls in love with
quivering laurels, rosy nymphs.

A sweet hour of delight and love, when
small birds chasing one another raise a wind
that beats upon a column of Olympian Zeus...