Jorge Luis Borge’s poem on Spinoza
Title: Spinoza
The Jew’s translucent hands
Shape the crystals in the twilight.
And the dying evening is
all fear and chill.
(In the evenings, evenings
are the same).
His hands and the hyacinth’s space
Paling at the purview of the ghetto
Are almost inexistent for the quiet man
Dreaming a dear labyrinth.
Fame does not perturb him, that
reflection
Of dreams in another kind of
dream,
Nor the girl’s fearful love.
Free of metaphor, free of myth
He shapes a rigid crystal: the
infinite
Map of the One that is All
Its stars.
Written by Jorge Luis Borge
anuvdp 