Candles

C.P. Cavafy

Days to come stand in front of us
like a row of lighted candles—
golden, warm, and vivid candles.
 
Days gone by fall behind us,
a gloomy line of snuffed-out candles;
the nearest are smoking still,
cold, melted, and bent.
 
I don’t want to look at them: their shape saddens me,
and it saddens me to remember their original light.
I look ahead at my lighted candles.
 
I don’t want to turn for fear of seeing, terrified,
how quickly that dark line gets longer,
how quickly the snuffed-out candles proliferate.

 In Church  

 
I love the church: its labara,
its silver vessels, its candleholders,
the lights, the ikons, the pulpit.
 
Whenever I go there, into a church of the Greeks,
with its aroma of incense,
its liturgical chanting and harmony,
the majestic presence of the priests,
dazzling in their ornate vestments,
the solemn rhythm of their gestures—
my thoughts turn to the great glories of our race,
to the splendor of our Byzantine heritage.

 
Translated by Edmund Keeley/Philip Sherrard