MIA PIKRA (GRIEF) from Heartaches of the Lagoon
By Kostis Palamas
Translated by Alex Moskios
My early unforgettable years I lived them
Close to the sea,
There by the shallow and calm sea,
There by the open and boundless sea.
And every time that my budding, early life
Comes back to me,
And I see the dreams and hear the voices
Of my early life there by the sea,
You, oh my heart, feel the same old yearning:
If I could live again,
Close to the shallow and calm sea,
There by the open and boundless sea.
Was it really my destiny, was it my fortune,
I haven't met another
A sea within me as shallow as a lake,
And like an ocean boundless and big.
And, lo! In my sleep a dream brought her
Close again to me,
The same there shallow and calm sea,
The same there boundless and open sea.
Yet, thrice be alas! A grief was poisoning me,
A powerful grief,
A grief that you did not lighten, my dream
Of my great early love, my home by the sea.
What storm, I wonder, was raging in me,
And what whirlwind,
That couldn't put it to rest, or lull it to sleep
My wonderful dream of my home by the sea.
A grief that is unspoken, an unexplained grief,
A powerful grief,
A grief not quenched even within the paradise
Of our early life close to the boundless sea.