Marias Polydouri
Maria PolidoЁІri (1905-1930)
“This talented Greek poet is best known for her reflections during her fatal illness at age 25. The tone of the two volumes of poetry ranges between anger and bitterness to resignation, almost as if she was looking at her pain and illness from a third person view. An orphan, her life in Athens was not easy but she vowed to study law. Friendship with poet KЁ®stas KariotЁўkis led her on a different path and she went to Paris. Within two years she returned to Athens fatally ill. Her name is also spelled Polydoure.”
However, the most important facts written above are false. The poet was born in 1902. What led her to Paris was not a friendship with Kariotakis, but his refusal to marry her. She lived there for two years, before going back to Athens suffering from tuberculosis. She killed herself, on the 30th of April 1930, by taking lethal morphine injections.
Probably the above article was based on a mention in the Britannica, which is full of mistakes as well. Maybe, weЎЇll have to write an essay in English to put things right at some time in the future. Until then, enjoy the four poems below and donЎЇt forget to love life.
To A Friend
I shall come upon the night, on the way that drags me along,
I shall come and find you there alone.
With indolent movements, eventide will spin her delicate shades,
drifting past your desolate window.
In the stillness of your room you shall have me in-
books scattered around, consigned to silence deep.
And we shall sit side by side, musing over moments past,
yet long before we lose them, still are dying and last.
For the bitterness of ungrateful life, the dreariness,
for having no yearning, no craving,
for decay and silence abiding
plunged in brooding stillness
our speech and ultimate thought shall fade away.
But the night will come to rest
right at your windowЎЇs nest.
Scents and glittering stars and fair breezes shall mingle
with the grand call that Nature delivers,
with your heart that even silence itself will not shelter.
Dream
I gathered roses for you
wandering about the mount;
a thousand thorns in my view,
my clasping hands in hurt abound.
I longed so much for you to pass
through the icy northern wind,
holding a gift for you ЁCalas-
tight against my bosomЎЇs tilt.
I kept on gazing afar,
full of yearning was my heart
and my eyes streaming tears.
In my craving I failed to see
the dead of night was drawing nigh;
and I cried and cried ЁCwhatever be-
me and my roses in the night.
Spring Has Drawn High
My cherished one, Lady Spring has drawn nigh. Each eve she deceives me
into playing with her resplendent scarf by the window.
Still, at midnight I can hear your sad song
drifting elusively past the nocturnal bridal harp.
My cherished one, all seek to lull me into a slumber sweet
and whisper to me that you have faded away, forever long.
But all ЎЇnЎЇ everything of you shall reminisce,
turning my anguished yearning into a gaping wound.
My cherished one, all do
unwittingly
remind me of you.
Come With Me
Come with me, for you wished to tread
this distant, otherworldly peak.
Still, nurture no will to steadily descend,
since there is no return for you to seek.
And you shall pay for the prevailing dread,
but not in havocЎЇs discontent, like in times gone.
Now you even set yourself to send
away your ultimate thought forlorn.
Our hands shall touch only the hair,
suspending amid blankness vacant
that sweeps away the words we dare
as if it were a barrier blatant.
But then the spells shall break ЎЇnЎЇ clear
and wilderness be our sole haunt.
With this and that weЎЇd look like young ЎЇnЎЇ dear,
Appearances would not miss out.
Note: All the Poems were translated in English by Evangelos Christopher Typoglou and were taken by the cd Ў°The Face of LoveЎ± by Nena Venetsanou.
