The Song of the Seven Islands

I came across this poem, on the way to looking up something entirely different. I guess that's the beauty of the Internet... anyway this is excerpted from near the bottom of a rather long page.

"Kostis Palamas once wrote a poem called "Song of the Seven Islands", which was translated by Ian Scot-Kilvert and quoted by Arthur Foss at the beginning of The Ionian Islands. I've always liked it:

"Song of the Seven Islands"

by Kostis Palamas

"Your waters dazzle like a floor of diamonds

Westward your tides

Grope and caress the shores of Italy.

In a circumference of blue the seven islands

Foam-chiselled, rise, dissolve,

Join hands and dance upon the waves.

Zakynthos drowned in flowers

Cephalonia seamed with toil

Kythera and Paxoi

Corfu the enchantress of the mind and heart

Ithaka a mariner's ryhme in stone

Levkas the watch-tower of the Armatoli.

From the Ionian shore

From the Ionian sea

Since Homer, since Solomos,

The poet's song, the statesman's art

Haunted these islands like sea-birds......................."