For baseball’s Opening Day! (which is today, not “tomorrow” but still.)
Hoorah, hooray!
Be glad, be gay-
The best of reasons
Is Opening Day.
And cheering the players
And counting the gate
And running the bases
And touching the plate.
And tossing the ball out
And yelling Play Ball!
(Who cares about fall-out-
At least, until fall?)
Let nothing sour
This sweetest hour;
The baseball season’s
Back in flower!
A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.
And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory,
Lying down in the melting snow.
There were times when we regretted
The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,
And the silken girls bringing sherbet.
Then the camel men cursing and grumbling
And running away, and wanting their liquor and women,
And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters,
And the cities dirty and the towns unfriendly
And the villages dirty and charging high prices:
A hard time we had of it.
At the end we preferred to travel all night,
Sleeping in snatches,
With the voices singing in our ears, saying
That this was all folly.
Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,
Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;
With a running stream and a water mill beating the darkness,
And three trees on the low sky,
And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.
Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,
Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,
And feet kicking the empty wineskins.
But there was no information, and so we continued
And arrived at evening, not a moment too soon
Finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory.
All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.
Weary child,
sleep tonight in the thick
nest of freezing March
one last time,
and I promise
tomorrow you will wake
to a morning of gold,
the bedroom shining
like a Byzantine palace
direct from Yeats’ fevered dreams,
the east window a prism
for the flood of dawn’s
achingly beautiful light,
warm, iridescent, and
doused with springtime.
I have come far enough
from where I was not before
to have seen the things
looking in at me from through the open door
and have walked tonight
by myself
to see the moonlight
and see it as trees
and shapes more fearful
because I feared
what I did not know
but have wanted to know.
My face is my own, I thought.
But you have seen it
turn into a thousand years.
I watched you cry.
I could not touch you.
I wanted very much to
touch you
but could not.
If it is dark
when this is given to you,
have care for its content
when the moon shines.
My face is my own.
My hands are my own.
My mouth is my own
but I am not.
Moon, moon,
when you leave me alone
all the darkness is
an utter blackness,
a pit of fear,
a stench,
hands unreasonable
never to touch.
But I love you.
Do you love me.
What to say
when you see me.
over my radio now
comes the sound of a truly mad organ,
I can see some monk
drunk in a cellar
mind gone or found,
talking to God in a different way;
I see candles and this man hs a red bear
as God has a red beard;
it is snowing, it is Italy, it is cold
and the bread is hard
and there is no butter,
only wine
wine in purple bottles
with giraffe necks,
and now the organ rises, again,
he violates it,
he plays it like a madman,
there is blood and spit in his beard,
he wants to laugh but there isn’t time,
the sun is going out,
then his fingers slow,
now there is exhaustion and the dream,
yes, even holiness,
man going to man,
to the mountains, the elephant, the star,
and a candle falls
but continues to burn upon its side,
a wax puddle shining in the eyes
of my red monk,
there is moss on the walls
and the stain of thought and failure and
waiting,
then again the music comes like hungry tigers,
and he laughs,
it is a child’s laugh, an idiot’s laugh,
laughing at nothing,
the only laugh that understands,
he holds the keys down
like stopping everything
and the room blooms with madness,
and then he stops, stops,
and sits, the candles burning,
one up, one down,
the snow of Italy is all that’s left,
it is over: the essence and the pattern.
I watch as
he pinches out the candles with his fingers,
wincing near the outer edge of each eye
and the room is dark
as everything has always been.
What am I? Nosing here, turning leaves over
Following a faint stain on the air to the river’s edge
I enter water. Who am I to split
The glassy grain of water looking upward I see the bed
Of the river above me upside down very clear
What am I doing here in mid-air? Why do I find
this frog so interesting as I inspect its most secret
interior and make it my own? Do these weeds
know me and name me to each other have they
seen me before do I fit in their world? I seem
separate from the ground and not rooted but dropped
out of nothing casually I’ve no threads
fastening me to anything I can go anywhere
I seem to have been given the freedom
of this place what am I then? And picking
bits of bark off this rotten stump gives me
no pleasure and it’s no use so why do I do it
me and doing that have coincided very queerly
But what shall I be called am I the first
have I an owner what shape am I what
shape am I am I huge if I go
to the end on this way past these trees and past these trees
till I get tired that’s touching one wall of me
for the moment if I sit still how everything
stops to watch me I suppose I am the exact centre
but there’s all this what is it roots
roots roots roots and here’s the water
again very queer but I’ll go on looking
* * *
1.
When I rov’d a young Highlander o’er the dark heath,
And climb’d thy steep summit, oh Morven of snow!
To gaze on the torrent that thunder’d beneath,
Or the mist of the tempest that gather’d below;
Untutor’d by science, a stranger to fear,
And rude as the rocks, where my infancy grew,
No feeling, save one, to my bosom was dear;
Need I say, my sweet Mary, ’twas centred in you?
2.
Yet it could not be Love, for I knew not the name,–
What passion can dwell in the heart of a child?
But, still, I perceive an emotion the same
As I felt, when a boy, on the crag-cover’d wild:
One image, alone, on my bosom impress’d,
I lov’d my bleak regions, nor panted for new;
And few were my wants, for my wishes were bless’d,
And pure were my thoughts, for my soul was with you.
3.
I arose with the dawn, with my dog as my guide,
From mountain to mountain I bounded along;
I breasted the billows of Dee’s rushing tide,
And heard at a distance the Highlander’s song:
At eve, on my heath-cover’d couch of repose.
No dreams, save of Mary, were spread to my view;
And warm to the skies my devotions arose,
For the first of my prayers was a blessing on you.
4.
I left my bleak home, and my visions are gone;
The mountains are vanish’d, my youth is no more;
As the last of my race, I must wither alone,
And delight but in days, I have witness’d before:
Ah! splendour has rais’d, but embitter’d my lot;
More dear were the scenes which my infancy knew:
Though my hopes may have fail’d, yet they are not forgot,
Though cold is my heart, still it lingers with you.
5.
When I see some dark hill point its crest to the sky,
I think of the rocks that o’ershadow Colbleen;
When I see the soft blue of a love-speaking eye,
I think of those eyes that endear’d the rude scene;
When, haply, some light-waving locks I behold,
That faintly resemble my Mary’s in hue,
I think on the long flowing ringlets of gold,
The locks that were sacred to beauty, and you.
6.
Yet the day may arrive, when the mountains once more
Shall rise to my sight, in their mantles of snow;
But while these soar above me, unchang’d as before,
Will Mary be there to receive me?–ah, no!
Adieu, then, ye hills, where my childhood was bred!
Thou sweet flowing Dee, to thy waters adieu!
No home in the forest shall shelter my head,–
Ah! Mary, what home could be mine, but with you?
No te habrá de salvar lo que dejaron
Escrito aquellos que tu miedo implora;
No eres los otros y te ves ahora
Centro del laberinto que tramaron
Tus pasos. No te salva la agonía
De Jesús o de Sócrates ni el fuerte
Siddharta de oro que aceptó la muerte
En un jardín, al declinar el día.
Polvo también es la palabra escrita
Por tu mano o el verbo pronunciado
Por tu boca. No hay lástima en el Hado
Y la noche de Dios es infinita.
Tu materia es el tiempo, el incesante
Tiempo. Eres cada solitario instante.
And in English, translated by yours truly:
The writings left behind by those whom
Your fears implore won’t have to save you;
You are not the others and you see yourself
Now at the center of the labyrinth woven
By your own steps. The agonies of Jesus or
Socrates will not save you, nor will the
Strength of Golden Siddhartha who,
At the end of the day, accepted death
In the garden. The word written
By your hand or the verb spoken
By your lips, these too are dust. Fate has no pity,
And God’s night is infinite.
Your matter is time, ceaseless
Time. You are each solitary moment.
* * *
It’s a beautiful poem, isn’t it? One of my favorites, in any language. The message in it is very important to me too, which is why I felt the need to put it in my own words, so to speak. The current published translation, though useful as a guide for me and my rusty Spanish, I feel did not do justice to Borges’ simple language. The translator (clearly a poet himself) had really gone all poet-y on it and added a great deal of flowery language that was very obviously not in the original poem. Having a pretty decent understanding of Spanish, I understand that a word-for-word translation is both impossible and unwieldy, and that certain certain changes and assumptions must be made in the translation (notably for this poem, any English version loses the beautiful rhyming in Spanish, such as fuerte/muerte – strength/death). But to alter a poem, especially one by a master such as Borges, with your own “interpretation” rather than translation is, frankly, insulting to the author and the reader. It somehow implies that the translator knows more what Borges meant than Borges did. It’s important to understand the poet’s intent and adapt it to your language, but I feel it’s more important to let the work speak for itself with as little manipulation as possible.
Look at the last three lines:
Y la noche de Dios es infinita.
Tu materia es el tiempo, el incesante
Tiempo. Eres cada solitario instante.
I wrote it out almost literally:
And God’s night is infinite.
Your matter is time, ceaseless
Time. You are each solitary moment.
The published translation goes:
And the enduring night of God is boundless.
Your matter is time, its unchecked and unreckoned
Passing. You are each solitary second.
Enduring? Unchecked? Unreckoned? Passing? I don’t see these words in the original. I would assume that if Borges wanted those words included, he would have included them. But hey, maybe this person’s translation is better. I mean what do I know. His is published and mine isn’t. It just seems right to take Borges at face value and not dress it up so much.
Up from the bronze, I saw
Water without a flaw
Rush to its rest in air,
Reach to its rest, and fall.
Bronze of the blackest shade,
An element man-made,
Shaping upright the bare
Clear gouts of water in air.
O, as with arm and hammer,
Still it is good to strive
To beat out the image whole,
To echo the shout and stammer
When full-gushed waters, alive,
Strike on the fountain’s bowl
After the air of summer.
Do you laugh or cry when you hear the poet sing?
“Out of the first warmth of the spring, and out
Of the shine of the hemlocks…” It’s the hemlocks, then,
Swaying above the grasses in the cemetery,
That encourage us in our affair with the world,
We have secret meetings with moss at night.
When the night-singer sang, did you notice the mice
Going by? They leave tracks like the setting stars.
Haven’t you heard the grunting of the hollyhocks,
Bringing forth their hairy life by the widow’s door?
Gravestones gather up stray tufts of time
That wind would otherwise scatter in the fields.
You and I have been in love with the moon
Rising for a long time, ever since the day
Our mothers took our hands in the spring field.
That was the day we heard the cry of the hemlocks.
We became lovers then; and our road was decided.
We laughed and cried over the warmth of the spring.
