Not a single star will be left in the night.

The night will not be left.

I will die and, with me,

the weight of the intolerable universe.


I shall erase the pyramids, the medallions,

the continents and faces.

I shall erase the accumulated past.

I shall make dust of history, dust of dust.


Now I am looking on the final sunset.

I am hearing the last bird.

I bequeath nothingness to no one.

TRANSLATED FROM THE SPANISH BY ALASTAIR REID


From “Selected Poems” by Jorge Luis Borges, edited by Alexander Coleman (Viking: 477 pp., $40)