The City

Constantine Cavafy

“You said: ‘I will go to another land, I will go to another sea.
Another city will be found, better than this.
Every effort of mine is written as a sentence of doom;
and my heart—like a dead man—is buried.
How long will my mind remain in this decay?
Wherever I turn my eyes, wherever I look,
I see the black ruins of my life here,
where I spent so many years and squandered and ruined it.’”

You will find no new places, no other seas.
The city will follow you. You will wander the same streets,
and grow old in the same neighbourhoods;
and in these same houses you will turn grey.
You will always arrive in this city. For elsewhere—do not hope—
there is no ship for you, no road.
As you have ruined your life here,
in this small corner, you have destroyed it across the whole world.