Giorgos Seferis
United Kingdom (Great Britain)This sun was mine and yours; we shared it.
Who's suffering behind the golden silk, who's dying?
A woman beating her dry breasts cried out; `Cowards,
they've taken my children and torn them to shreds, you've
killed them
gazing at the fire-flies at dusk with a strange look,
lost in blind thought.'
The blood was drying on a hand that a tree made green,
We were happy all that morning
Ï God how happy.
First the stones the leaves and the flowers shone
and then the sun
a huge sun all thorns but so very high in the heavens.
Á Nymph was gathering our cares and hanging them on the trees
a forest of Judas trees.
Cupids and satyrs were singing and playing
Wherever I travel Greece wounds me.
On Pelion among the chestnut trees the Centaur's shirt
slipped through the leaves to fold around my body
as I climbed the slope and the sea came after me
climbing too like mercury in a thermometer till we found the mountain waters.
On Santorini touching islands that were sinking
hearing a pipe play somewhere on the pumice stone
my hand was nailed to the gunwale by an arrow shot suddenly