As we, again, set sail for Byzantium

Be prepared.

The Turks

Have spent 500 years wiping out

Every trace of our 1500 year occupancy here

In Constantinople.

Our voyage will be a long one
Full of adventure, full of discovery.
Covering much time and space
Yeats set out but never arrived

His spirits flagged:
But St Sophia waits!

Surrounded as it is by minarets

This cathedral for all the Christians

Of the East was built by us when Rome

Still thrived and all your thoughts will

Be raised high as the cross that once sat

So equably above St Sophia's dome.

Rare excitement will stir your soul and body

As you draw close to the heart of Byzantium.

We were defaced first by western pig-crusaders

Who knew as little of civilization as did the Seljuk

Turks: both would kill a child to save their skins

Byzantine ethics are from within: Aristotle and

The Athenian school. We connect modernity with
Antiquity. We carry our philosophy in our souls.
The voyage is a long one and you may not survive.
On many a summer morning you may wish to stop

At Lesbos or Crete to enjoy the sun and have fun
You may stop at Phoenician trading stations
To buy fine things: jewels and ebony and ivory.

But why? You never will return home.
Instead you must gather rare erotic knowledge

And plough on to the holy city of Byzantium.

Keep Byzantium always in your mind.
Arriving there is what you are destined for.
But do not hurry the journey at all.
Better if it lasts for years, decades, a whole lifetime,
So you, too,  are old and have garnered
Wisdom from your travels to Constantinople.
A holy city for the Greeks and it was the Greeks

Who made us what we are, when we are

At our best.

If you find her, poor old Constantinople, misnamed

By such an ugly un-Byzantine name as Istanbul

And occupied by a foreign people: do not be concerned

History is long, and, we, the Greeks, know that many things
Are contained within the wide and ample lap of the gods.