a poem by Odysseas Elytis

Helios o Protos only a selected part
(The Sovereign Sun)

by Odysseas Elytis


(XVI) From what rocks, from what blood, from what iron from what fire, we are made of While we appear to be just made of cloud and they throw stones at us, yelling: "dreamers!"... How we get on, in our days and our nights, only a God can know...


[Odysseas Elytis (Greek: Οδυσσέας Ελύτης) (November 2, 1911—March 18, 1996) was a Greek poet regarded as a major exponent of romantic modernism in Greece and the world. In 1979, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.]