Gifts in Abeyance: Last Poems 1981-91 (Modern Greek History and Culture, Vol 19)

The poems in this volume come from collections published by the poet during the last ten years of his life (1981-91). The theme and tone of these last collections are set by the epilogue from Liturgy below the Acropolis, a long dramatic poem for voices comparable in conception and scope to Odysseus Elytis's Axion Esti. Here, we encounter a sense of impending departure, a feeling of indebtedness to the world and a wish to settle accounts, a need to bid farewell to his friends-symbols: to the sun, the light, the world around, the hallowed Christ-like figure of man, the trees, the flowers, the sea, to his beloved Mount Taygetus and, not least, to poetry itself.