Old Greek Lovers

They put wild olive and acanthus up

With tufts of yellow wool above the door

When a man died in Greece and in Greek Islands,

Grey stone by the blue sea,

Or sage-green trees down to the water’s edge.

How many clanging years ago

I, also withering into death, sat with him,

Old man of so white hair who only,

Only looked past me into the red fire.

At last his words were all a jumble of plum-trees

And white boys smelling of the sea’s green wine

And practice of his lyre. Suddenly

The bleak resurgent mind

Called wonderfully clear: “What mark have I left?”

Crying girls with wine and linen

Washed the straight old body and wrapped up,

And set the doorward feet.

Later for me also under Greek sun

The pendant leaves in green and bitter flakes

Blew out to join the wastage of the world,

And wool, I take it, in the nests of birds.

From the Arabic of John Duncan.