Walking yesterday in an outlying neighborhood,
I went by the house
I used to go to when I was very young.
There Eros with his magnificent power
had taken hold of my body.
And yesterday
when I walked along the old road,
the shops, the sidewalks, the stones,
walls and balconies and windows—
all were suddenly made beautiful by the spell of love:
nothing ugly was left there.
And as I stood gazing at the door,
stood there lingering outside the house,
my whole being radiated
the sensual emotion stored up inside me.
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