Oh most loved country,
oh wonderful island
Zakynthos; you have given me
the breath of life and the golden gifts of Apollo.

You, too, receive the hymn;
the immortals hate the soul
and thunder against the heads
of the ungrateful.

Never have I forgotten you,
Never! It has been my luck which has cast me
Far from you. One fifth of my life has seen me
in foreign lands.

My fate not grant me
a tomb in a foreign land
Death is sweet only
in our own native land.

Translation by John E. Rexine

We present this work in honor of the poet’s 115th birthday.

He was very tired—who cared about glory any longer? Enough was enough.
He had come to know enemies and friends—purported friends:
behind all the admiration and love they hid their self-interest,
their own suspicious dreams, those cunning innocents.
Now,
on the little island of Leuce, alone at last, peaceful, no pretensions,
no duties or tight armor, most of all without
the humble hypocrisy of heroism, hour after hour he can taste
the saltiness of evening, the stars, the silence, and that feeling—
mild and endless—of general futility, his only companions the wild goats.
But here too, even after dying,
he was pursued by new admirers—usurpers of his memory, these:
they set up altars and statues in his name, worshipped, left.
Sea-gulls alone stayed with him; now every morning they fly down to the shore,
wet their wings, fly back quickly to wash the floor of his temple
with gentle dance movements. In this way
a poetic idea circulates in the air (maybe his only justification)
and a condescending smile for everyone and everything crosses his lips
as he waits yet again for new pilgrims (and he knows how much he likes that)
with all their noise, their Thermos bottles, their eggs and phonographs,
as he now waits for Helen—yes, that same Helen for whose
fleshly and dreamy beauty
so many Achaeans and Trojans (he among them) were destroyed.

Translation by Edmund Keeley

We present this work in honor of the poet’s 140th birthday.

With her hair closely cropped up to the nape
Like Dorian Apollo’s, the girl lay on the narrow
Pallet, keeping her limbs stiffly frozen
Within a heavy cloud she could not escape…

Artemis emptied her quiver—every arrow
Shot through her body. And though very soon
She’d be no virgin, like cold honeycomb,
Her virgin thighs still kept her pleasure sealed…

As if to the arena, the youth came
Oiled with myrrh, and like a wrestler kneeled
To pin her down; and although he broke past

Her arms that she had thrust against his chest,
Only much later, with one cry, face to face,
Did they join lips, and out of their sweat, embrace…

Translation by A.E. Stallings

We present this work in honor of the poet’s 135th birthday.

Autumn, I loved you when the leaves fall
And leave the branches naked for winter’s icy bites,
When the evenings flee, the poms are apple red,
And lonely are the nights…

And stand I now and ask: what fate and what storm,
While alone sailing the abysmal depths of mort,
Strangely and hopelessly has brought me now forlorn
A beggar in your court…

And when the dinner ends and night falls,
And quietly, like books, the light dies in the sky
I come back looking for my lost peace of old,
Like a charity from up high…

I loved you fall, when the leaves fall and
Leave the branches, and lonely is each night.
But did I really love you – or is just the shiver
Of the coming winter’s icy bite…

Translation by Alex Moskios

We present this work in honor of the poet’s 130th birthday.

Nanai as you leave – with the winds – I ride
in the eye of silence and everything goes
and there are many ships, many seas – big
clouds above – the people and May.

And inside me roaring – all trembling –
a heavy steamer and
then again you and May and the winds
and then again the people, the people.

And all that leaves – and does not stay –
in a city uninhabited, and in me
ungoverned, may the ship take you
out of the storm of this world.