Poetry

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Poem about Gifts :: J. L. Borges

Let none think that I by tear or reproach make light
Of this manifesting the mastery
Of God, who with excelling irony
Gives me at once both books and night.

In this city of books he made these eyes
The sightless rulers who can only read,
In libraries of dreams, the pointless
Paragraphs each new dawn offers

To awakened care. In vain the day
Squanders on them its infinite books,
As difficult as the difficult scripts
That perished in Alexandria.

An old Greek story tells how some king died
Of hunger and thirst, though proffered springs and fruits;
My bearing lost, I trudge from side to side
Of this lofty, long blind library.

The walls present, but uselessly,
Encyclopedia, atlas, Orient
And the West, all centuries, dynasties,
Symbols, cosmos and cosmogonies.

Slow in my darkness, I explore
The hollow gloom with my hesitant stick,
I, that used to figure Paradise
In such a library’s guise.

Something that surely cannot be called
Mere chance must rule these things;
Some other man has met this doom
On other days of many books and the dark.

As I walk through the slow galleries
I grow to feel with a kind of holy dread
That I am that other, I am the dead,
And the steps I make are also his.

Which of us two is writing now these lines
About a plural I and a single gloom?
What does it matter what word is my name
If the curse is indivisibly the same?

Groussac or Borges, I gaze at this beloved
World that grows more shapeless, and its light
Dies down into a pale, uncertain ash
Resembling sleep and the oblivion of night.

[From Dreamtigers, by Jorge Luis Borges, translated by Harold Morland]

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The Magnanimous Enemy :: J. L. Borges

Museum

Φ

Magnus Barfod, in the year 1102, undertook the general conquest
of the kingdoms of Ireland; it is said that on the eve of his death
he received this greeting from Muirchertach, king in Dublin:

May gold and the storm fight along with you in your armies,
Magnus Barfod.
Tomorrow, in the fields of my kingdom, may you have a
happy battle.
May your kingly hands be terrible in weaving the sword stuff.
May those opposing your sword become meat for the red swan.
May your many gods glut you with glory, may they glut you
with blood.
Victorious may you be in the dawn, king who tread on Ireland.
Of your many days may none shine bright as tomorrow.
Because that day will be the last. I swear it to you,
King Magnus.
For before its light is blotted, I shall vanquish you and blot
you out, Magnus Barfod.

From H. Gering: Anhang zur Heimskringla (1893)

[From Dreamtigers, by Jorge Luis Borges, translated by Harold Morland]

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Limits :: J. L. Borges

Museum

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There is a line in Verlaine I shall not recall again,
There is a street close by forbidden to my feet,
There’s a mirror that’s seen me for the very last time,
There is a door that I have locked till the end of the world.
Among the books in my library (I have them before me)
There are some that I shall never open now.
This summer I complete my fiftieth year;
Death is gnawing at me ceaselessly.

Julio Platero Haedo: Inscripciones (Montevideo, 1923)

[From Dreamtigers, by Jorge Luis Borges, translated by Harold Morland]

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Quatrain :: J. L. Borges

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Others died, but it happened in the past,
The season (as all men know) most favorable for death.
Is it possible that I, subject of Yaqub Almansur,
Must die as roses had to die and Aristotle?

From Divan of Almoqtadir El Magrebi (12th century)

[From Dreamtigers, by Jorge Luis Borges, translated by Harold Morland]

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The Regret of Heraclitus :: J. L. Borges

Museum

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I, who have been so many men, have never been
The one in whose embrace Matilde Urbach swooned.

Gaspar Camerarius, in Deliciae poetarum Borussiae, VII, 16

[From Dreamtigers, by Jorge Luis Borges, translated by Harold Morland]


			

	
	



			
				



	
	


		
					

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Dreamtigers Epiloge :: J. L. Borges

	


		

		
God grant that the essential monotony of this miscellany (which time has compiled – not I -and which admits past pieces that I have not dared to revise, because I wrote them with a different concept of literature) be less evident than the geographical and historical diversity of its themes. Of all the books I have delivered to the presses, none, I think, is as personal as the straggling collection mustered for this hodgepodge, precisely because it abounds in reflections and interpolations. Few things have happened to me, and I have read a great many. Or rather, few things have happened to me more worth remembering than Schopenhaur’s thought or the music of England’s words.


A man sets himself the task of portraying the world. Through the years he peoples a space with images of provinces, kingdoms, mountains, bays, ships, islands, fishes, rooms, instruments, stars, horses, and people. Shortly before his death, he discovers that that patient labyrinth of lines traces the image of his face.


J. L. B


Buenos Aires, October 31, 1960.


[From Dreamtigers, by Jorges Luis Borges, translated by Harold Morland]

			

	
	



			
				



	
	


		
					

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The Poet Declares His Renown :: J. L. Borges

	


		

		
Museum


 


 


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The circle of the sky metes out my glory,

The libraries of the East contend for my poems,

Emirs seek me out to fill my mouth with gold,

Angels already know by heart my latest ghazal.

My working tools are humiliation and an anguish;

Would to God I’d been stillborn.


From the Divan of Abulcasim El Hadrami (12th century)


[From Dreamtigers, by Jorge Luis Borges, translated by Harold Morland]

			

	
	



			
				



	
	


		
					

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Quantum Mechanics of a Lonely Heart

	


		

		
. . . the world, which seems

To lie before us like a land of dreams,

So various, so beautiful, so new,

Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,

Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help from pain;

And we are here as on a darkling plain

Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,

Where ignorant armies clash by night.


[From Matthew Arnold’s Dover Beach]

			

	
	



			
				



	
	


		
					

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That the Night Come :: W. B. Yeats

	


		

		
She lived in storm and strife,

Her soul had such desire

For what proud death may bring

That it could not endure

The common good of life,

But lived as ’twere a king

That packed his marriage day

With banneret and pennon,

Trumpet and kettledrum,

And the outrageous cannon,

To bundle time away

That the night come.

			

	
	



			
				



	
	


		
					

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To A Friend Whose Work Has Come To Nothing :: W. B. Yeats

	


		

		
Now all the truth is out,

Be secret and take defeat

From any brazen throat,

For how can you compete,

Being honour bred, with one

Who, were it proved he lies,

Were neither shamed in his own

Nor in his neighbor’s eyes?

Bred to a harder thing

Than Triumph, turn away

And like a laughing string

Whereon mad fingers play

Amid a place of stone,

Be secret and exult,

Because of all things known

That is most difficult.

			

	
	



			
				



	
	


		
					

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The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock :: T. S. Eliot

	


		

		










S’io credesse che mia risposta fosse

A persona che mai tornasse al mondo,		





Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse.





Ma perciocche giammai di questo fondo





Non torno vivo alcun, s’i’odo il vero,





Senza tema d’infamia ti rispondo.1






















LET us go then, you and I,





When the evening is spread out against the sky





Like a patient etherised upon a table;





Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,





The muttering retreats
 5




Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels





And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:





Streets that follow like a tedious argument





Of insidious intent





To lead you to an overwhelming question …
 10




Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”





Let us go and make our visit.










In the room the women come and go





Talking of Michelangelo.










The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,
 15




The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes





Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,





Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,





Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,





Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,
 20




And seeing that it was a soft October night,





Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.










And indeed there will be time





For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,





Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;
 25




There will be time, there will be time





To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;





There will be time to murder and create,





And time for all the works and days of hands





That lift and drop a question on your plate;
 30




Time for you and time for me,





And time yet for a hundred indecisions,





And for a hundred visions and revisions,





Before the taking of a toast and tea.










In the room the women come and go
 35




Talking of Michelangelo.










And indeed there will be time





To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”





Time to turn back and descend the stair,





With a bald spot in the middle of my hair—
 40




[They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”]





My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,





My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin—





[They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”]





Do I dare
 45




Disturb the universe?





In a minute there is time





For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.










For I have known them all already, known them all:—





Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
 50




I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;





I know the voices dying with a dying fall





Beneath the music from a farther room.





So how should I presume?










And I have known the eyes already, known them all—
 55




The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,





And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,





When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,





Then how should I begin





To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?
 60




And how should I presume?










And I have known the arms already, known them all—





Arms that are braceleted and white and bare





[But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!]





Is it perfume from a dress
 65




That makes me so digress?





Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.





And should I then presume?





And how should I begin?


.      .      .      .      .






Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets
 70




And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes





Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows?…










I should have been a pair of ragged claws





Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.


.      .      .      .      .






And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!
 75




Smoothed by long fingers,





Asleep … tired … or it malingers,





Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.





Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,





Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?
 80




But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,





Though I have seen my head [grown slightly bald] brought in upon a platter,





I am no prophet—and here’s no great matter;





I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,





And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,
 85




And in short, I was afraid.










And would it have been worth it, after all,





After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,





Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,





Would it have been worth while,
 90




To have bitten off the matter with a smile,





To have squeezed the universe into a ball





To roll it toward some overwhelming question,





To say: “I am Lazarus, come from the dead,





Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all”—
 95




If one, settling a pillow by her head,





Should say: “That is not what I meant at all.





That is not it, at all.”










And would it have been worth it, after all,





Would it have been worth while,
 100




After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,





After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor—





And this, and so much more?—





It is impossible to say just what I mean!





But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:
 105




Would it have been worth while





If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,





And turning toward the window, should say:





“That is not it at all,





That is not what I meant, at all.”


.      .      .      .      .

 110




No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;





Am an attendant lord, one that will do





To swell a progress, start a scene or two,





Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,





Deferential, glad to be of use,
 115




Politic, cautious, and meticulous;





Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;





At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—





Almost, at times, the Fool.










I grow old … I grow old …
 120




I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.










Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?





I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.





I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.










I do not think that they will sing to me.
 125









I have seen them riding seaward on the waves





Combing the white hair of the waves blown back





When the wind blows the water white and black.










We have lingered in the chambers of the sea





By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
 130




Till human voices wake us, and we drown.






Notes:


1     A passage from Dante Alighieri’s Inferno (Canto 27, lines 61-66) spoken by Guido da Montefeltro in response to the questions of Dante, who Guido supposes is dead, since he is in Hell:. The flame in which Guido is encased vibrates as he speaks: “If I thought that that I was replying to someone who would ever return to the world, this flame would cease to flicker. But since no one ever returns from these depths alive, if what I’ve heard is true, I will answer you without fear of infamy.” [Note from Reading About the World, Volume 2, published by Harcourt Brace Custom Books]

			

	
	



			
				



	
	


		
					

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Paulus Potter :: Marcel Proust

	


		

		
As crabs, goats, scorpions, the balance and the water-pot lose their meanness when hung as signs in the zodiac, so I can see my own vices without heat in . . . distant persons.

–Ralph Waldo Emerson


Somber grief of skies uniformly gray,

Sadder for being blue during rare bright intervals,

And which allow the warm tears of a misunderstood sun

To filter down upon the paralyzed plains;

Potter, melancholy mood of the somber plains,

Which stretch out, endless, joyless, colorless;

The trees, the hamlet cast no shadows,

The tiny, meager gardens have no flowers.

A plowman lugs buckets home, and his puny mare

Resigned, anxious, and dreamy,

Uneasily listening to her passive brain,

Inhales in small gulps the strong breath of the wind.


— Marcel Proust, Pleasures and Days

			

	
	



			
				



	
	


		
					

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Now, it is enough just to die

	


		

		
Blood pools in the temples; reddened rocks

soaked in slaughter. Age is no help:

no shame in hastening an old man’s dying day

nor in cutting off a babe on the brink of life.

For what crime could these young deserve death?

Now, it is enough just to die. Bloodlust carries them away:

a man shows himself weak if he inquires about guilt.

Many die to stack the numbers; a bloody winner

snatches a head severed from unknown neck, ashamed

to walk empty handed. . . .


— Lucan (2.103-13), translated by Braund and Hooley

			

	
	



			
				



	
	


		
					

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Dissolve the engines of the broken world

	


		

		
So when this world’s compounded union breaks,

Time ends and to old Chaos all things turn;

Confused stars shall meet, celestial fire

Fleet on the the floods, the earth shoulder the sea,

Affording it no shore, and Phoebe’s wain

Chase Phoebus and enraged affect his place,

And strive to shine by day, and full of strife

Dissolve the engines of the broken world.


— Marlowe’s version of Lucan (I.72-80)

			

	
	



			
				



	
	


		
					

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Susana Soca :: J. L. Borges

	


		

		
With slow love she looked at the scattered

Colors of afternoon. It pleased her

To lose herself in intricate melody

Or in the curious life of verses.

Not elemental red but the grays

Spun her delicate destiny,

Fashioned to discriminate and exercised

In vacillation and in blended tints.

Without venturing to tread this perplexing

Labyrinth, she watched from without

The shapes of things, their tumult and their course,

Just like that other lady of the mirror.

Gods who dwell far-off past prayer

Abandoned her to that tiger, Fire.








[From Dreamtigers, by Jorge Luis Borges, translated by Harold Morland]