My kind old father whose love for me has always stayed the same— I mourn my kind old father who died two days ago, just before dawn. Christ Jesus, I try each day in my every thought, word, and deed to keep the commandments of your most holy Church; and I abhor all who deny you. But now I mourn: I grieve, O Christ, for my father even though he was—terrible as it is to say it— priest at that cursed Serapeion.
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