Poetry Friday: The Odyssey Again

I've been reading this book:

It's the perfect book for someone who recently read The Odyssey.  Scott Huler recreates the trip Odysseus took, and so this is part reading the Odyssey, part travel narrative, part life lessons - but humorous and not taking himself too seriously.

Huler referred to this poem, and though I had read it before, I'd forgotten about it.

Ithaka
C.P. Cavafy

As you set out for Ithaka
hope the voyage is a long one,
full of adventure, full of discovery.
Laistrygonians and Cyclops,
angry Poseidon—don’t be afraid of them:
you’ll never find things like that on your way
as long as you keep your thoughts raised high,
as long as a rare excitement
stirs your spirit and your body.
Laistrygonians and Cyclops,
wild Poseidon—you won’t encounter them
unless you bring them along inside your soul,
unless your soul sets them up in front of you.

Hope the voyage is a long one.
May there be many a summer morning when,
with what pleasure, what joy,
you come into harbors seen for the first time;
may you stop at Phoenician trading stations
to buy fine things,
mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
sensual perfume of every kind—
as many sensual perfumes as you can;
and may you visit many Egyptian cities
to gather stores of knowledge from their scholars.

Here's the rest.

And here's the roundup.