My work, I’m very careful about it, and I love it. But today I’m discouraged by how slowly it’s going. The day has affected my mood. It gets darker and darker. Endless wind and rain. I’m more in the mood for looking than for writing. In this picture, I’m now gazing at a handsome boy who is lying down close to a spring, exhausted from running. What a handsome boy; what a heavenly noon has caught him up in sleep. I sit and gaze like this for a long time, recovering through art from the effort of creating it.
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