Friday, February 4, 2011

Invulnerable Dust

Robert Browning

from Browning Decides to Be a Poet
by Jorge Luis Borges

In today's dialect
I shall say, in my fashion, eternal things:
I shall try to be worthy
of the great echo of Byron.
This dust that I am will be invulnerable.
If a woman shares my love
my verse will touch the tenth sphere of the concentric heavens;
if a woman turns my love aside
I will make of my sadness a music,
a full river to resound through time.
I shall live by forgetting myself.


Jorge Luis Borges

Read the rest here

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7 comments:

  1. Lovely poem. I like "a full river to resound through time." I love Browning's work, and Borges gives great insight into the man, himself, and all of us who long to "say eternal things." Thanks for posting.

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  2. Lots of food for thought in that poem. Thanks for featuring it -- it was something I never would have come across otherwise :).

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  3. This has always been one of my favorite Browning poems. Thanks for sharing it.

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  4. Glad you enjoyed it! I like that Borges' Browning makes a reference to Byron... even heroes have heroes.

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  5. Poetry is wonderful. Thanks for sharing such great selections. Just scrolled down and saw the clockfaces you posted. Stunning!

    I am rejoining the world today.

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  6. "I will make of my sadness a music,
    a full river to resound through time."

    Lines I tuck away for another time - now that is poetry!

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  7. This is a very hopeful poem -- no matter what life throws you, you can make something beautiful of it.

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