Sun and softness,
Sun and the beaten hardness of the earth,
Sun and the song of all the sun-stars
Gathered together,—
Dark ones of Africa,
I bring you my songs
To sing on the Georgia roads.

If you can keep your head when all about you

   Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

   But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

   Or, being lied about, don’t deal in lies,

Or, being hated, don’t give way to hating,

   And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;

   If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;

If you can meet with triumph and disaster

   And treat those two impostors just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken

   Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,

   And stoop and build ’em up with wornout tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

   And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

   And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

   To serve your turn long after they are gone,

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

   Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on”;

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

   Or walk with kings—nor lose the common touch;

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;

   If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run—

   Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,

And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

They flee from me, that sometime did me seek,
With naked foot stalking in my chamber.
I have seen them, gentle, tame, and meek,
That now are wild, and do not remember
That sometime they put themselves in danger
To take bread at my hand; and now they range,
Busily seeking with a continual change.

Thanked be Fortune it hath been otherwise,
Twenty times better; but once in special,
In thin array, after a pleasant guise,
When her loose gown from her shoulders did fall,
And she me caught in her arms long and small,
And therewith all sweetly did me kiss
And softly said, “Dear heart, how like you this?”

It was no dream, I lay broad waking.
But all is turned, thorough my gentleness,
Into a strange fashion of forsaking;
And I have leave to go, of her goodness,
And she also to use newfangleness.
But since that I so kindely am served,
I fain should know what she hath deserved.

The evening darkens over
After a day so bright
The windcapt waves discover
That wild will be the night.
There’s sound of distant thunder.

The latest sea-birds hover
Along the cliff’s sheer height;
As in the memory wander
Last flutterings of delight,
White wings lost on the white.

There’s not a ship in sight;
And as the sun goes under
Thick clouds conspire to cover
The moon that should rise yonder.
Thou art alone, fond lover.

^{translated from the ancient Greek by Ernest Myers}

O ye who haunt the land of goodly steeds that drinketh of Kephisos’ waters, lusty Orchomenos’ queens renowned in song, O Graces, guardians of the Minyai’s ancient race, hearken, for unto you I pray. For by your gift come unto men all pleasant things and sweet, and the wisdom of a man and his beauty, and the splendour of his fame. Yea even gods without the Graces’ aid rule never at feast or dance; but these have charge of all things done in heaven, and beside Pythian Apollo of the golden bow they have set their thrones, and worship the eternal majesty of the Olympian Father.

O lady Aglaia, and thou Euphrosyne, lover of song, children of the mightiest of the gods, listen and hear, and thou Thalia delighting in sweet sounds, and look down upon this triumphal company, moving with light step under happy fate. In Lydian mood of melody concerning Asopichos am I come hither to sing, for that through thee, Aglaia, in the Olympic games the Minyai’s home is winner. Fly, Echo, to Persephone’s dark-walled home, and to his father bear the noble tidings, that seeing him thou mayest speak to him of his son, saying that for his father’s honour in Pisa’s famous valley he hath crowned his boyish hair with garlands from the glorious games.

^{translated from the Arabic by Khaled Mattawa} 

^{for Najib Elhassadi on the road to the airport at the moment he turns to look back.}

Be kind to your foolish lovers 
with their naïve infatuation. 
We are your children,  
newly descended from  
the meagre shelters of myth.  
We count you on our fingers,  
pain by pain.

Be kind to our faded clothes 
in the span of your burning summer. 
Be kind to us,  
worshippers of the here and now 
as you weave the garments  
of your coming womb, 
and grant your crooked palm trees 
to the obscure horizon.

And as you spill the faces  
of friends on the quay’s pavement, 
be kind to our faces, caught deep  
into your blistering winds.
Be kind to us.  
Of your treasures, our only share  
is the asphalt that drags us  
to the airport’s clamor.

To you we offer  
this laughter passed around  
behind the darkness of our hearts,  
these empty pockets billowing  
far from the orchards  
of your sweet dates, 
and our dry lips which you push off  
to nursemaids made of paper.

And you have us— 
we have none but you. 
We curse the elegance  
of distant cities and return  
to your elegant ruin.

None but you, 
we settle in you,  
full of sleeplessness, 
and we sleep 
to the scent of cloves 
on your miserly breasts.

There is no rest for the mind 
in a small house. It moves, looking for God, 
with a mysterious eye fixed on the bed, 
into a cracked egg at breakfast, 
looking for glory in an arm-chair, 
or simply noting the facts of life 
in a fly asleep on the ceiling. 
The mind, sunk in quiet places, 
(like old heroes) sleeps no more, 
but walks abroad in a slouch hat 
performing adultery at violent street corners; 
then, trembling, returns, 
sadly directs its mysterious eye 
into a coffee-cup. There is no rest 
for there are many miles to walk in the small house, 
traveling past the same chairs, the same tables, 
the same glassy portraits on the walls, 
flowing into darkness.

There is no victory in the mind, 
but desperate valor, 
shattering the four walls, 
disintegrating human love, 
until the iron-lidded mysterious eye 
(lowered carefully with the frail body 
under churchyard gardens) 
stares upward, luminous, inevitable, 
piercing solar magnitudes 
on a fine morning.