El sueño

Si el sueño fuera (como dicen) una

tregua, un puro reposo de la mente,
¿por qué, si te despiertan bruscamente,
sientes que te han robado una fortuna?

¿Por qué es tan triste madrugar? La hora
nos despoja de un don inconcebible,
tan íntimo que sólo es traducible
en un sopor que la vigilia dora

de sueños, que bien pueden ser reflejos
truncos de los tesoros de la sombra,
de un orbe intemporal que no se nombra

y que el día deforma en sus espejos.
¿Quién serás esta noche en el oscuro
sueño, del otro lado de su muro?

Jorge Luis Borges

Sleep 

If sleep is truce, as it is sometimes said,

A pure time for the mind to rest and heal,
Why, when they suddenly wake you, do you feel
That they have stolen everything you had?
Why is it so sad to be awake at dawn?
It strips us of a gift so strange, so deep,
It can be remembered only in half-sleep,
Moments of drowsiness that gild and adorn
The waking mind with dreams, which may well be
But broken images of the night's treasure,
A timeless world that has no name or measure
And breaks up in the mirrors of the day.
Who will you be tonight, in the dark thrall
Of sleep, when you have slipped across its wall?

translated by Robert Mezey


(Picture: Dali's Hand Drawing Back the Golden Fleece in the Form of a Cloud to Show Gala,Completely Nude,the Dawn,Very,Very Far Away Behind the Sun, Salvador Dali)