One monotonous day follows another
equally monotonous. The same things
will happen again, and then will happen again,
the same moments will come and go.
A month passes by and brings another month.
Easy to guess what lies ahead:
all of yesterday’s boredom.
And tomorrow ends up no longer like tomorrow.
Reprinted from C.P. CAVAFY: Collected Poems Revised Edition, translated by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard, edited by George Savidis. Translation copyright © 1975, 1992 by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard. Princeton University Press. For reuse of these translations, please contact Princeton University Press.
The Canon