Keep Ithaka always in your

   mind.

Arriving there is what you’re

   destined for.

But don’t hurry the journey at

   all.

 

Ithaka gave you the marvelous

   journey.

Without her you wouldn’t

   have set out.

She has nothing left to give

   you now.

 

And if you find her poor,

   Ithaka won’t have fooled

   you.

Wise as you will have become,

   so full of experience,

you’ll have understood by

   then what these Ithakas

   mean.

 

— C. P. Cavafy, “The City” from C.P. Cavafy: Collected Poems. Translated by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard.

*Excerpt from the poem “Ithaka”