Poem of the week: CP Cavafy
Selected Poems by CP Cavafy (Penguin Classics, 2008, £9.99) presents a selection of Cavafy's work in a new translation by Avi Sharon. Candles is perhaps his best-known poem: like much of his work, it is haunted by an acute sense of the brevity of youth.
Candles
The days of the future stand before us
like a line of burning candles -
golden candles, warm with life.
Behind them stand the days of our past,
a pitiful row of candles extinguished,
the nearest still sending up their smoke:
cold and melted, withered sticks.
I don't want to look; their image makes me sad,
it saddens me to recall their kindling.
I look ahead at the ones still burning.
I don't want to turn and see, with horror,
how quickly the line of the shadow lengthens,
how quickly the number of snuffed candles grows.
You can borrow CP Cavafy's Selected Poems from the Scottish Poetry Library, which also lends by post. Tel: 0131-557 2876, e-mail reception@spl.org.uk or visit www.spl.org.uk
The full article contains 182 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
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Last Updated:
15 May 2008 11:44 AM
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Source:
The Scotsman
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Location:
Edinburgh
