El mar [English translation]

Ere Dream - or Terror - had begun to glean

its web of myth and broad cosmogony,

ere Time had settled unto days, the Sea -

the ever Sea - existed and had been.

Who is the Sea? Who is the old tormentor

who has for ages sapped the earthly shore,

and who at once is one and countless more,

and randomness and storm and fall and splendor?

Each time one sees the sea is yet the first.

The spellbound soul takes in the peremptory

display of primal things: the moonshine glory,

the shifting skies, the gaze in flames immersed.

Who is the Sea, who am I? I shall find

the day my agony is left behind.

• Artist:Jorge Luis Borges
• Album:El otro, el mismo, 1964