The things he timidly imagined as a schoolboy are openly revealed to him now. And he wanders around, stays out all night, gets involved. And as is right (for our kind of art) his blood—fresh and hot— is relished by sensual pleasure. His body is overcome by forbidden erotic ecstasy; and his young limbs give in to it completely. In this way a simple boy becomes something worth our looking at, for a moment he too passes through the exalted World of Poetry, the young sensualist with blood fresh and hot. 

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

Philhellene

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