Professor Borges - A Course on English Literature

rezado?”
[“Have not I prayed in Heaven? . . . / Lord, has he not pray’d?”] She begins to be afraid, but she says: “
¿Y debo sentir miedo?
” [“And shall I feel afraid?”]
“When round his head the aureole clings,
And he is clothed in white,
I’ll take his hand and go with him
To the deep wells of light;
As unto a stream we will step down,
And bathe there in God’s sight.”
    “
Cuando la aureola rodee su cabeza y él esté vestido de blanco . . .
” [“When round his head the aureole clings, / And he is clothed in white . . . ”]—that is, when he is dead and has been forgiven—“
yo lo tomaré de la mano y lo llevaré a los hondos pozos de luz . . .
” [“I’ll take his hand and go with him / To the deep wells of light . . . ”]. HereNordau said that because the poet is combining an image of heaven with the erotic vision of two lovers bathing together in a pond, he must be a degenerate.
“We two will stand beside that shrine,
Occult, withheld, untrod,
Whose lamps are stirred continually
With prayer sent up to God;
And see our old prayers, granted, melt
Each like a little cloud.
“We two will lie i’ the shadow of
That living mystic tree
Within whose secret growth the Dove
Is sometimes felt to be,
While every leaf that His plumes touch
Saith His Name audibly.”
    Okay, look at the shrine, “
cuyas luces están agitadas continuamente por las plegarias que suben hacia Dios, y veremos que las plegarias se disolverán como si fuesen nubecitas, y dormiremos a la sombra de este místico árbol viviente
” [“Whose lamps . . . That living mystic tree . . . ”] here it is—“
Donde se dice que a veces está la paloma . . .
” [Within whose secret growth the Dove . . . ”], that is, the Holy Spirit, “
Y cada hoja que tocan sus plumas dice audiblemente su nombre
” [“While every leaf . . . / Saith His Name audibly”].
“And I myself will teach to him,
I myself, lying so,
The songs I sing here; which his voice
Shall pause in, hushed and slow,
And find some knowledge at each pause,
Or some new thing to know.”
    And then she says that she is going to teach him the songs she has learned and each of the verses will reveal something to him.
(Alas! We two, we two, thou say’st!
Yea, one wast thou with me
That once of old. But shall God lift
To endless unity
The soul whose likeness with thy soul
Was but its love for thee?)
    Now the lover enters: “
Tú dices ‘nosotros dos,’ pero nostoros somos uno
.” [“We two . . . once of old.”] There is a kind of conversation going on between the two of them, because what he says seems to answer what she says. Though, of course, he cannot hear her. However, they seem to have remained united as they had been on Earth. Now, you can see that this poem is in a way also a story. That is to say, luckily for us, it has been written in verse, but it could be a story in prose, a fantastical story. It is essentially narrative.

“We two,” she said, “will seek the groves
Where the lady Mary is,
With her five handmaidens, whose names
Are five sweet symphonies,
Cecily, Gertrude, Magdalen,
Margaret and Rosalys.
“Circlewise sit they, with bound locks
And foreheads garlanded;
Into the fine cloth white like flame
Weaving the golden thread,
To fashion the birth-robes for them
Who are just born, being dead.”
    “
Y buscaremos dónde está Lady Mary con sus cinco doncellas . . .
” [“We two . . . will seek the groves / Where the lady Mary is, / With her five handmaidens . . . ”] whom she names. They are weaving the garments for those who have just been born because they have died, in other words, they have just been born in heaven.
“He shall fear, haply, and be dumb:
Then will I lay my cheek
To his, and tell about our love,
Not once abashed or weak:
And the dear Mother will approve
My pride, and let me speak.
“Herself shall bring us, hand in hand,
To him round whom all souls
Kneel, the clear-ranged unnumbered heads
Bowed with their aureoles:
And angels meeting us shall sing
To their citherns and citoles.”
    She says that she is going to collect myrrh and laurel and will tell the Virgin of their love, without any shame, and the dear mother will pray for them. In other words, the Virgin will allow their love to be fruitful. “
Y ella misma nos ayudará ante Aquel frente a quien se arrodillan todas las almas . . .
” [“Herself shall bring us . . . To him round whom all souls / Kneel . . . ”], in other words, Jesus Christ.
“There will I