and the Alexandrians ran to see the show
and grew enthusiastic, and applauded
in Greek, in Egyptian, and some in Hebrew,
bewitched with the beautiful spectacle,
though they knew perfectly well how worthless,
what empty words, were these king-makings.
Such a poem has, even in a translation, a "distinguished" air. It is the work of an artist not interested in facile beauty. In the second example, though its subject-matter is pathetic, Cavafy stands equally aloof. The poem is broken into half-lines; he is spelling out an epitaph on a young man who died in the month of Athyr, the ancient Egyptian November, and he would convey the obscurity, the poignancy, that sometimes arise together out of the past, entwined into a single ghost:
It is hard to read . . . on the ancient stone.
"Lord Jesus Christ" . . . I make out the word "Soul."
"In the month of Athyr . . . Lucius fell asleep."
His age is mentioned . . . "He lived years . . ."—
The letters KZ show . . . that he fell asleep young.
In the damaged part I see the words . . . "Him . . . Alexandrian."
Then come three lines . . . much mutilated.
But I can read a few words . . . perhaps "our tears" and "sorrows."
And again: "Tears" . . . and: "for us his friends mourning."
I think Lucius . . . was much beloved.
In the month of Athyr . . . Lucius fell asleep . . .
Such a writer can never be popular. He flies both too slowly and too high. Whether subjective or objective, he is equally remote from the bustle of the moment, he will never compose either a Royalist or a Venizelist Hymn. He has the strength (and of course the limitations) of the recluse, who, though not afraid of the world, always stands at
