moonless night in the small town...

You can hear the dew falling, and the hushed town breathing.
Only your eyes are unclosed to see the black and folded town fast, and slow, asleep.
And you alone can hear the invisible starfall, the darkest-before- dawn minutely dewgrazed stir of the black...

Yannis Stavrou, Nocturnal, Hydra Island, oil on paper

Dylan Thomas
Under Milk Wood
(extract)
[Silence]
FIRST VOICE [very softly]

To begin at the beginning:

It is Spring, moonless night in the small town, starless and bible-black, the cobblestreets silent and the hunched, courters'-and- rabbits' wood limping invisible down to the sloeblack, slow, black, crowblack, fishingboat-bobbing sea. The houses are blind as moles (though moles see fine to-night in the snouting, velvet dingles) or blind as Captain Cat there in the muffled middle by the pump and the town clock, the shops in mourning, the Welfare Hall in widows' weeds. And all the people of the lulled and dumbfound town are sleeping now.

Hush, the babies are sleeping, the farmers, the fishers, the tradesmen and pensioners, cobbler, schoolteacher, postman and publican, the undertaker and the fancy woman, drunkard, dressmaker, preacher, policeman, the webfoot cocklewomen and the tidy wives. Young girls lie bedded soft or glide in their dreams, with rings and trousseaux, bridesmaided by glow-worms down the aisles of the organplaying wood. The boys are dreaming wicked or of the bucking ranches of the night and the jollyrogered sea. And the anthracite statues of the horses sleep in the fields, and the cows in the byres, and the dogs in the wet-nosed yards; and the cats nap in the slant corners or lope sly, streaking and needling, on the one cloud of the roofs.

You can hear the dew falling, and the hushed town breathing.

Only your eyes are unclosed to see the black and folded town fast, and slow, asleep.

And you alone can hear the invisible starfall, the darkest-before- dawn minutely dewgrazed stir of the black...

Comments & Greek artists, Greek painting: They came dressed up as "friends"...

Odysseas Elytis

They Came

They came
dressed up as “friends,”
came countless times, my enemies,
trampling the primeval soil.
And the soil never blended with their heel.
They brought
The Wise One, the Founder, and the Geometer,
Bibles of letters and numbers,
every kind of Submission and Power,
to sway over the primeval light.
And the light never blended with their roof.
Not even a bee was fooled into beginning the golden game,
not even a Zephyr into swelling the white aprons.
On the peaks, in the valleys, in the ports
they raised and founded
mighty towers and villas,
floating timbers and other vessels;
and the Laws decreeing the pursuit of profit
they applied to the primeval measure.
And the measure never blended with their thinking.
Not even a footprint of a god left a man on their soul,
not even a fairy’s glance tried to rob them of their speech.
They came
dressed up as “friends,”
came countless times, my enemies,
bearing the primeval gifts.
And their gifts were nothing else
but iron and fire only.
To the open expecting fingers
only weapons and iron and fire.
Only weapons and iron and fire.

Comments & Greek painters, Greek artists: a boundless moment...

Poetry & Greek paintings, Greek artists


Yannis Stavrou, Hydra landscape, oil on canvas

Robert Lee Frost
A Boundless Moment

He halted in the wind, and--what was that
Far in the maples, pale, but not a ghost?
He stood there bringing March against his thought,
And yet too ready to believe the most.

'Oh, that's the Paradise-in-bloom,' I said;
And truly it was fair enough for flowers
had we but in us to assume in march
Such white luxuriance of May for ours.

We stood a moment so in a strange world,
Myself as one his own pretense deceives;
And then I said the truth (and we moved on).
A young beech clinging to its last year's leaves.

Comments & modern Greek artists, Greek painters: And eternity occurs to me, and all the ages past...

Poetry & modern Greek painters, Greek artists


Yannis Stavrou, Hydra under the Moon Light, oil on canvas

This computation of my sorrow's age.
How pleasant is it, in the days of youth...

Giacomo Leopardi
To the Moon

O lovely moon, how well do I recall
The time,--'tis just a year--when up this hill
I came, in my distress, to gaze at thee:
And thou suspended wast o'er yonder grove,
As now thou art, which thou with light dost fill.
But stained with mist, and tremulous, appeared
Thy countenance to me, because my eyes
Were filled with tears, that could not be suppressed;
For, oh, my life was wretched, wearisome,
And is so still, unchanged, beloved moon!
And yet this recollection pleases me,
This computation of my sorrow's age.
How pleasant is it, in the days of youth,
When hope a long career before it hath,
And memories are few, upon the past
To dwell, though sad, and though the sadness last!


Giacomo Leopardi (1798-1837)

L' Infinito

This solitary hill has always been dear to me
And this hedge, which prevents me from seeing most of
The endless horizon.
But when I sit and gaze, I imagine, in my thoughts
Endless spaces beyond the hedge,
An all encompassing silence and a deeply profound quiet,
To the point that my heart is almost overwhelmed.
And when I hear the wind rustling through the trees
I compare its voice to the infinite silence.
And eternity occurs to me, and all the ages past,
And the present time, and its sound.
Amidst this immensity my thought drowns:
And to flounder in this sea is sweet to me.

And some of his thoughts...

Death is not evil, for it frees man from all ills and takes away his desires along with desire's rewards.

No human trait deserves less tolerance in everyday life, and gets less, than intolerance.

No one is so completely disenchanted with the world, or knows it so thoroughly, or is so utterly disgusted with it, that when it begins to smile upon him he does not become partially reconciled to it.

Old age is the supreme evil, for it deprives man of all pleasures while allowing his appetites to remain, and it brings with it every possible sorrow. Yet men fear death and desire old age.

People are ridiculous only when they try or seem to be that which they are not.

Real misanthropes are not found in solitude, but in the world; since it is experience of life, and not philosophy, which produces real hatred of mankind.

There are some centuries which - apart from everything else - in the art and other disciplines presume to remake everything because they know how to make nothing.

Comments & Greek artists: I know you of old Oh divinely restored, By the light of your eyes And the edge of your sword...

Greek poetry & modern Greek artists


Yannis Stavrou. Hydra Landscape, oil on canvas

One day before the Greek Independence Day which celebrates the start of the Greek revolution against Ottoman rule in 1821...

Reading our national poet...

Dionysios Solomos
Hymn To Liberty
(The Greek Anthem)

I KNOW YOU of old
Oh divinely restored,
By the light of your eyes
And the edge of your sword.

From the graves of our people
Shall your spirit prevail
As we greet you again-
Hail, Liberty, Hail!

Long did you dwell
Amid the peoples that mourn
Awaiting some voice
That should tell you to return

Oh, unfortunate one!
The only consolation you had
were the past glories,
and remembering them you cried.

Long you have awaited
for a freedom-loving call
and in despair one hand
hits the other one.

And you cried:
ah! When do I raise my head
in this desolate land?
and the answer was chains, cries so sad.

Then you shifted your gaze
tearfully, clouded in haze
and on your garment dripped blood
from your children's tortured hearts.

With blood-stained clothes
I know for a fact
that you secretly sought help
in stronger hands of foreign lands.

On your journey you started alone
and alone you came back
doors do not easily open
when you need them so bad.

Someone cried on your breast,
but no response at its best;
another promised you help,
but he tricked you no less.

Some, allas! in your misfortune rejoice
and with such a cold poise
"go find your children" said they
as doors were shut in your face.

The foot slips and slides
and in such a haste it steps
on stone, or grass
reminders of a glorious past.

The miserable head shamefully leans
and the image it brings
is of a poor beggar, going door to door
with no interest in life any more.

Yet, behold now the sons
with impetuous breath
Go forth to the fight
seeking freedom or death.

From the graves of our people
shall the spirit prevail
as we greet you again-
Hail, Liberty, Hail!