Home ⇒ 📌Constantine P Cavafy ⇒ Voices
Voices
Ideal and beloved voices
Of those who are dead, or of those
Who are lost to us like the dead.
Sometimes they speak to us in our dreams;
Sometimes in thought the mind hears them.
And with their sound for a moment return
Other sounds from the first poetry of our life
Like distant music that dies off in the night.
(2 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)
Related poetry:
- Music, When Soft Voices Die Music, when soft voices die, Vibrates in the memory Odours, when sweet violets sicken, Live within the sense they quicken. Rose leaves, when the rose is dead, Are heaped for the beloved’s bed; And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone, Love itself shall slumber on....
- Voices Of the Night PRELUDE. Pleasant it was, when woods were green, And winds were soft and low, To lie amid some sylvan scene, Where, the long drooping boughs between Shadows dark and sunlight sheen Alternate come and go; Or where the denser grove receives No sunlight from above But the dark foliage interweaves In one unbroken roof of […]...
- Voices of the Air But then there comes that moment rare When, for no cause that I can find, The little voices of the air Sound above all the sea and wind. The sea and wind do then obey And sighing, sighing double notes Of double basses, content to play A droning chord for the little throats The little […]...
- Music When music sounds, gone is the earth I know, And all her lovely things even lovelier grow; Her flowers in vision flame, her forest trees Lift burdened branches, stilled with ecstasies. When music sounds, out of the water rise Naiads whose beauty dims my waking eyes, Rapt in strange dreams burns each enchanted face, With […]...
- Voices NOW I make a leaf of Voices-for I have found nothing mightier than they are, And I have found that no word spoken, but is beautiful, in its place. O what is it in me that makes me tremble so at voices? Surely, whoever speaks to me in the right voice, him or her I […]...
- The Three Voices The First Voice HE trilled a carol fresh and free, He laughed aloud for very glee: There came a breeze from off the sea: It passed athwart the glooming flat – It fanned his forehead as he sat – It lightly bore away his hat, All to the feet of one who stood Like maid […]...
- Earth Voices I I heard the spring wind whisper Above the brushwood fire, “The world is made forever Of transport and desire. “I am the breath of being, The primal urge of things; I am the whirl of star dust, I am the lift of wings. “I am the splendid impulse That comes before the thought, The […]...
- Dream Song 21: Some good people, daring & subtle voices Some good people, daring & subtle voices And their tense faces, as I think of it I see sank underground. I see. My radar digs. I do not dig. Cool their flushing blood, them eyes is shut— Eyes? Appalled: by all the dead: Henry brooded. Without exception! All. ALL. The senior population waits. Come down! […]...
- In the Highlands IN the highlands, in the country places, Where the old plain men have rosy faces, And the young fair maidens Quiet eyes; Where essential silence cheers and blesses, And for ever in the hill-recesses Her more lovely music Broods and dies O to mount again where erst I haunted; Where the old red hills are […]...
- Return Return often and take me, Beloved sensation, return and take me When the memory of the body awakens, And an old desire runs again through the blood; When the lips and the skin remember, And the hands feel as if they touch again. Return often and take me at night, When the lips and the […]...
- Your Voices Joined Is All It Takes They came in masted wooden ships across An unindentured sea and cast their lot in ocean Swells to chance at history, and Sovereign power Commanded thus they rot in purgatory. Petty crime or deeds they did in torrid Times from anxious needs which bid them cheat And lie to live; condemned and badly done by […]...
- Sonnets 08: And You As Well Must Die, Beloved Du And you as well must die, beloved dust, And all your beauty stand you in no stead; This flawless, vital hand, this perfect head, This body of flame and steel, before the gust Of Death, or under his autumnal frost, Shall be as any leaf, be no less dead Than the first leaf that fell, […]...
- THE SINGING SCHOOL The Poetry School, The Poetry Book Society, The Poetry Business: So much poetry about you’d think I’d want to shout, “Hurray, hurray, Every day’s Poetry Day!” but I don’t and you don’t either- You know its flim-flam on the ether, grants for Jack-the-lads Of both sexes, poets who’ve never been seen in a little magazine […]...
- Birds Of Passage Black shadows fall From the lindens tall, That lift aloft their massive wall Against the southern sky; And from the realms Of the shadowy elms A tide-like darkness overwhelm The fields that round us lie. But the night is fair, And everywhere A warm, soft vapor fills the air, And distant sounds seem near; And […]...
- The Gardener XXVIII: Your Questioning Eyes Your questioning eyes are sad. They Seek to know my meaning as the moon Would fathom the sea. I have bared my life before your Eyes from end to end, with nothing Hidden or held back. That is why you Know me not. If it were only a gem, I could break It into a […]...
- The Spirit Medium Poetry, music, I have loved, and yet Because of those new dead That come into my soul and escape Confusion of the bed, Or those begotten or unbegotten Perning in a band, I bend my body to the spade Or grope with a dirty hand. Or those begotten or unbegotten, For I would not recall […]...
- Poem For People That Are Understandably Too Busy To Read Poetry Relax. This won’t last long. Or if it does, or if the lines Make you sleepy or bored, Give in to sleep, turn on The T. V., deal the cards. This poem is built to withstand Such things. Its feelings Cannot be hurt. They exist Somewhere in the poet, And I am far away. Pick […]...
- Music: An Ode WAS it light that spake from the darkness, Or music that shone from the word, When the night was enkindled with sound Of the sun or the first-born bird? Souls enthralled and entrammelled in bondage Of seasons that fall and rise, Bound fast round with the fetters of flesh, And blinded with light that dies, […]...
- Sonnet 30 – I see thine image through my tears to-night I see thine image through my tears to-night, And yet to-day I saw thee smiling. How Refer the cause?-Beloved, is it thou Or I, who makes me sad? The acolyte Amid the chanted joy and thankful rite May so fall flat, with pale insensate brow, On the altar-stair. I hear thy voice and vow, Perplexed, […]...
- O Sun of Real Peace O SUN of real peace! O hastening light! O free and extatic! O what I here, preparing, warble for! O the sun of the world will ascend, dazzling, and take his height-and you too, O my Ideal, will surely ascend! O so amazing and broad-up there resplendent, darting and burning! O vision prophetic, stagger’d with […]...
- May 24, 1980 I have braved, for want of wild beasts, steel cages, Carved my term and nickname on bunks and rafters, Lived by the sea, flashed aces in an oasis, Dined with the-devil-knows-whom, in tails, on truffles. From the height of a glacier I beheld half a world, the earthly width. Twice have drowned, thrice let knives […]...
- "I Love You Sweatheart" A man risked his life to write the words. A man hung upside down (an idiot friend Holding his legs?) with spray paint To write the words on a girder fifty feet above A highway. And his beloved, The next morning driving to work…? His words are not (meant to be) so unique. Does she […]...
- Hither, Hither, Love Hither hither, love – ‘Tis a shady mead – Hither, hither, love! Let us feed and feed! Hither, hither, sweet – ‘Tis a cowslip bed – Hither, hither, sweet! ‘Tis with dew bespread! Hither, hither, dear By the breath of life, Hither, hither, dear! – Be the summer’s wife! Though one moment’s pleasure In one […]...
- Silence Since I lost you I am silence-haunted, Sounds wave their little wings A moment, then in weariness settle On the flood that soundless swings. Whether the people in the street Like pattering ripples go by, Or whether the theatre sighs and sighs With a loud, hoarse sigh: Or the wind shakes a ravel of light […]...
- A Dream I heard the dogs howl in the moonlight night; I went to the window to see the sight; All the Dead that ever I knew Going one by one and two by two. On they pass’d, and on they pass’d; Townsfellows all, from first to last; Born in the moonlight of the lane, Quench’d in […]...
- A Musician's Wife Between the visits to the shock ward The doctors used to let you play On the old upright Baldwin Donated by a former patient Who is said to be quite stable now. And all day long you played Chopin, Badly and hauntingly, when you weren’t Screaming on the porch that looked Like an enormous birdcage. […]...
- The Voices The rich and fortunate do well to keep silent, For no one cares to know who and what they are. But those in need must reveal themselves, Must say: I am blind, Or: I’m on the verge of going blind, Or: nothing goes well with me on earth, Or: I have a sickly child, Or: […]...
- THE DEATH OF ART “Reading well is one of the great pleasures that solitude can afford you.” -critic Harold Bloom, who first called slam poetry “the death of art.” I am not a poet. I want to be rich and buy things for my family. Besides, I am sort of popular and can honestly say I’ve had a great […]...
- Discordants I. (Bread and Music) Music I heard with you was more than music, And bread I broke with you was more than bread; Now that I am without you, all is desolate; All that was once so beautiful is dead. Your hands once touched this table and this silver, And I have seen your fingers […]...
- It Is March It is March and black dust falls out of the books Soon I will be gone The tall spirit who lodged here has Left already On the avenues the colorless thread lies under Old prices When you look back there is always the past Even when it has vanished But when you look forward With […]...
- The Three Voices The waves have a story to tell me, As I lie on the lonely beach; Chanting aloft in the pine-tops, The wind has a lesson to teach; But the stars sing an anthem of glory I cannot put into speech. The waves tell of ocean spaces, Of hearts that are wild and brave, Of populous […]...
- A Crazed Girl That crazed girl improvising her music. Her poetry, dancing upon the shore, Her soul in division from itself Climbing, falling She knew not where, Hiding amid the cargo of a steamship, Her knee-cap broken, that girl I declare A beautiful lofty thing, or a thing Heroically lost, heroically found. No matter what disaster occurred She […]...
- Thoreau's Flute We sighing said, “Our Pan is dead; His pipe hangs mute beside the river Around it wistful sunbeams quiver, But Music’s airy voice is fled. Spring mourns as for untimely frost; The bluebird chants a requiem; The willow-blossom waits for him; The Genius of the wood is lost.” Then from the flute, untouched by hands, […]...
- The Lure Of Little Voices There’s a cry from out the loneliness oh, listen, Honey, listen! Do you hear it, do you fear it, you’re a-holding of me so? You’re a-sobbing in your sleep, dear, and your lashes, how they glisten Do you hear the Little Voices all a-begging me to go? All a-begging me to leave you. Day and […]...
- The Everlasting Voices O sweet everlasting Voices, be still; Go to the guards of the heavenly fold And bid them wander obeying your will, Flame under flame, till Time be no more; Have you not heard that our hearts are old, That you call in birds, in wind on the hill, In shaken boughs, in tide on the […]...
- Classical Indian Explanation: Music past the hippies Past Ravi Shankar Eons before When the first Asian snake Came alive Stiffened with sound Through some empty shell Some hollow wood Some emptiness The snake Was not so much charmed As listening intently To the accidental flute To that which he knew Must be female Its empty insides Calling him With […]...
- Voices at the Window Who is it that, this dark night, Underneath my window plaineth? It is one who from thy sight Being, ah, exiled, disdaineth Every other vulgar light. Why, alas, and are you he? Be not yet those fancies changeed? Dear, when you find change in me, Though from me you be estranged, Let my change to […]...
- Time to play It is a pristine page, clean on the blue screen Where I compose, I don’t expect it to stay that way As words glow from blunt, abused fingers, as insistent Sounds in my head translate into sentence structures, As lips articulate the rhythms and the sounds of the Jumbled lexis as swiftly as I can […]...
- Lullaby Beloved, may your sleep be sound That have found it where you fed. What were all the world’s alarms To mighty paris when he found Sleep upon a golden bed That first dawn in Helen’s arms? Sleep, beloved, such a sleep As did that wild Tristram know When, the potion’s work being done, Roe could […]...
- Music I Heard Music I heard with you was more than music, And bread I broke with you was more than bread; Now that I am without you, all is desolate; All that was once so beautiful is dead. Your hands once touched this table and this silver, And I have seen your fingers hold this glass. These […]...
« Hymn 66