by Constantine P. Cavafy (1863 - 1933)
Translation by Rachel Dalven (1904 - 1992)

Voices
Language: English  after the Greek (Ελληνικά) 
Ideal and dearly beloved voices
of those who are dead
or of those who are lost to us like the dead.

Sometimes they speak to us in our dreams;
sometimes in thought the mind hears them.

And for a moment with their echo
other echos return from the first poetry of our lives-
like music that extinguishes the far off night.

Text Authorship:

Based on:

Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):


Researcher for this page: Joost van der Linden [Guest Editor]

This text was added to the website: 2026-08-19
Line count: 8
Word count: 61