Selected poetry

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read,
Which yet survive,
 stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them,
 and the heart that fed,
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look upon my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Ithaka

As you set out for Ithaka
hope your road is a long one,
full of adventure, full of discovery.
Laistrygonians, Cyclops,
angry Poseidon-don?t be afraid of them:
you?ll never find things like that on your way
as long as you keep your thoughts raised high,
as long as a rare excitement
stirs your spirit and your body.
Laistrygonians, Cyclops,
wild Poseidon-you won?t encounter them
unless you bring them along inside your soul,
unless your soul sets them up in front of you.


Hope your road is a long one.
May there be many summer mornings when,
with what pleasure, what joy ,
you enter harbours you?re seeing there for the first time;
may you stop at Phoenician trading stations
to buy fine things,
mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
sensual perfume of every kind-
as many sensual perfumes as you can;
and may you visit many Egyptian cities
to learn and go on learning from their scholars.


Keep Ithaka always in your mind.
Arriving there is what you?re destined for.
But don?t hurry the journey at all.
Better if it lasts for years,
so you?re old by the time you reach the island,
wealthy with all you?ve gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.


Ithaka gave you the marvellous journey.
Without her you wouldn?t have set out.
She has nothing left to give you now.
And if you find her poor, Ithaka won?t have fooled you.
Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,
you?ll have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.

From the book Led by the Nose

Poems copyright David Pybus. Artwork Copyright Sergio Lievano.