Borges: The Sonnets

                       "KNIGHT, DEATH, AND THE DEVIL"



                          Under the unreal helmet the severe
                          Profile is cruel like the cruel sword
                          Waiting, poised. Through the stripped forest
                          Rides the horseman unperturbed.

                          Clumsily, furtively, the obscene mob
                          Closes in on him: the Devil with servile
                          Eyes, the labyrinthine reptiles
                          And  the ashen old man with the hourglass.

                          Iron rider, whoever looks at you
                          Knows  that in you neither the lie
                          Nor pale fear dwells. Your hard fate

                          Is to command  and offend.  You are brave
                          And  you are certainly not unworthy,
                          German,  of the Devil and of Death.

       Two versions of "Knight, Death, and the Devil"


                                      Under the unreal helmet the severe
                                      Profile is cruel like the cruel sword
                                      Waiting, poised. Through the stripped forest
                                      Rides the horseman unperturbed.
                                      Clumsily, furtively, the obscene mob
                                      Closes in on him: the Devil with servile
                                      Eyes, the labyrinthine reptiles
                                      And the ashen old man with the hourglass.
                                      Iron rider, whoever looks at you
                                      Knows that in you neither the lie
                                      Nor pale fear dwells. Your hard fate
                                      Is to command and offend. You are brave
                                      And you are certainly not unworthy,
                                      German, of the Devil and of Death.

                                        II
                                      There are two roads. That of the man
                                      Of iron and arrogance, who rides,
                                      Firm in his faith, through the doubtful woods
                                      Of the world, between the taunts and the rigid
                                      Dance of the Devil with Death,

                                      And the other, the short one, mine. In what vanished
                                      Long-ago night or morning did my eyes
                                      Discover the fantastic epic,
                                      The enduring dream of Darer,
                                      The hero and the mob with all its shadows
                                      Searching me out, and catching me in ambush?                               

                                      It is me, and not the paladin, whom the hoary
                                      Old man crowned  with sinuous snakes
                                      Is warning. The future's water clock
                                      Measures my time, not his eternal now.
                                      I am the one who will be ashes and darkness;
                                      I, who set out later, will have reached
                                      My  mortal destination; you, who do not exist,
                                      You, rider of the raised sword
                                      And the rigid woods, your pace
                                      Will keep on going as long as there are men.
                                      Composed, imaginary, eternal.
                                                                                -S.K.