Ionic, by Constantinos Cavafis

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That we’ve broken their statues,
that we’ve driven them out of their temples,
doesn’t mean at all that the gods are dead.

O land of Ionia, they’re still in love with you,
their souls still keep your memory.
When an August dawn wakes over you,
your atmosphere is potent with their life,
and sometimes a young ethereal figure,
indistinct, in rapid flight,
wings across your hills.



(C.P. Cavafy, Collected Poems. Translated by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard.)

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