Jorge Luis Borges - Labyrinths

to the ancient lands of his forbears,
to Andalucia, to Portugal and to those counties
where the Saxon warred with the Dane and they mixed their
blood,
to have wandered through the red and tranquil labyrinth of
London,
to have grown old in so many mirrors,
to have sought in vain the marble gaze of the statues,
to have questioned lithographs, encyclopedias, atlases,
to have seen the things that men see,
death, the sluggish dawn, the plains,
and the delicate stars,
and to have seen nothing, or almost nothing
except the face of a girl from Buenos Aires
a face that does not want you to remember it.
Oh destiny of Borges,
perhaps no stranger than your own.
(1964)
Translated by D. A. Y.
Chronology
1899 Born August 24 in Buenos Aires
1914 Travels with his family to Europe. At the outbreak of the
war, the Borgeses settle in Switzerland where Jorge finishes his
secondary education.
1919-21 Travel in Spain -- Majorca, Seville, Madrid.
Association with the ultraist literary group (Rafael Cansinos Assens,
Guillermo de Torre, Gerardo Diego, etc.). His first poem published in
the magazine Grecia.
1921 Returns to Argentina. Publication with friends (González
Lanuza, Norah Lange, Francisco Piñero, etc.) of the "mural" magazine
Prisma -- pasted in poster fashion on fences and walls of the city.
1923 Family travels again to Europe. Publication at home of
his first book of poetry, El fervor de Buenos Aires.
1924 Contributes to the reincarnated Proa and Martín Fierro,
two important literary magazines of the time.
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