Poem-a-day

Walls

^{translated from the modern Greek by John Cavafy}

Without reflection, without mercy, without shame,
they built strong walls and high, and compassed me about.

And here I sit now and consider and despair.

It wears away my heart and brain, this evil fate:
I had outside so many things to terminate.

Oh! why when they were building could I not beware!

But never a sound of building, never an echo came.
Insensibly they drew the world and shut me out.

Τείχη

Χωρίς περίσκεψιν, χωρίς λύπην, χωρίς αιδώ
μεγάλα κ’ υψηλά τριγύρω μου έκτισαν τείχη.

Και κάθομαι και απελπίζομαι τώρα εδώ.
Άλλο δεν σκέπτομαι: τον νουν μου τρώγει αυτή η τύχη·

διότι πράγματα πολλά έξω να κάμω είχον.
A όταν έκτιζαν τα τείχη πώς να μην προσέξω.

Aλλά δεν άκουσα ποτέ κρότον κτιστών ή ήχον.
Aνεπαισθήτως μ’ έκλεισαν από τον κόσμον έξω.

This poem is in the public domain. Published in Poem-a-Day on June 10, 2023, by the Academy of American Poets.

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One does such work as one will not,
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Though the white storm howls, or the sun is hot,
The black must serve the white.
And it’s, oh, for the white man’s softening flesh,
While the black man’s muscles grow!
Well I know which grows the mightier,

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Ever and ever anon,
After the black storm, the eternal, beauteous bow!
Brother, to rosy-painted mists that arch beyond,
Blithely I go.

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O’er all my song the image of a face
Lieth, like shadow on the wild sweet flowers.
The dream, the ecstasy that prompts my powers;
The golden lyre’s delights bring little grace
To bless the singer of a lowly race.
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He came, a youth, singing in the dawn
Of a new freedom, glowing o’er his lyre.
Refining, as with great Apollo’s fire,
His people’s gift of song. And thereupon,
This Negro singer, come to Helicon,
Constrained the masters, listening to admire,
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James D. Corrothers

1922

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Poem-a-day

Walls

Τείχη

C. P. Cavafy

Poems

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The Road To The Bow

The Negro Singer

Paul Laurence Dunbar