Borges, Jorge Luis: Limits (Límites (De estas calles…) in English)
Límites (De estas calles…) (Spanish)De estas calles que ahondan el poniente, a Quién prefija omnipotentes normas Si para todo hay término y hay tasa Tras el cristal ya gris la noche cesa Hay en el Sur más de un portón gastado Para siempre cerraste alguna puerta Hay, entre todas tus memorias, una No volverá tu voz a lo que el persa ¿Y el incesante Ródano y el lago, Creo en el alba oír un atareado
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Limits (English)Of all those boulevards blurred into the sunset There’s one (I know not which) that I have strolled Across for the last time without a care, And unaware of what it was, controlled
By One who predesigns almighty norms, All laws and a strict scale in secrecy For dreams and shadows, formulas and forms Which are the texture of our tapestry.
If all things have a limit and a length, A final moment and a nevermore, Then who shall let us know upon whose house We have unwittingly now sealed the door?
Through the bleached window night withdraws again And, in the jumbled stack of books that shed A craze of shadows on the hazy table, There shall be one that must be left unread.
Out in the south stands more than one worn gate There with its cactus and cemented urns Whose entry is forbidden to my feet As in a lithograph. Nothing returns:
You’ve bolted shut a certain door forever; A mirror waits in vain, expecting you; The crossroads seem to lie unbarred before you But four-faced Janus watches what you do.
Among your many memories is one Which has been lost to you forevermore; They will not see you by that fountain nor Beneath the yellow moon, or the white sun.
Your voice shall never come to what the Persian Said in his tongue of roses, wine and birds, When under dusk before the light is scattered You wish to say some unforgettable words.
The ceaseless Rhône? My European lake? That yesterday I hunch upon today Will be erased as Carthage by the Romans Whose salt and fire it could not hold at bay.
Here in the dawn I hear a multitude, A murmur fading out of mind and ear. They have forgotten me who used to love me. Borges and Space and Time have left me here.
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