Robert Desnos, J’AI TANT RÊVÉ DE TOI translated by Charlotte Mandell
I HAVE DREAMED OF YOU SO MUCH
I have dreamed of you so much that you are losing reality
Will there be time to reach that living body and kiss that mouth, where
the voice so dear to me is born?
I have dreamed of you so much that my arms, embracing your shadow,
are so used to squeezing my own chest they might not wrap round
the shape of your body.
And, faced with the real appearance of what has haunted and ruled me
for days and years, I would surely become a shadow.
O balancing act of feelings!
I’ve dreamed of you so much that I have surely run out of time to wake. I
sleep standing up, my body bare to all the appearances of life and
love of you, the only one who matters to me today. I am less able
to touch your face and lips than the next lips, the next face, that
chance by.
I’ve dreamed of you so much, walked, talked, slept so much with your
ghost that maybe all that’s still left for me is to be a ghost among
ghosts and a shadow, a hundred times more of a shadow, than the
shadow that walks, will so cheerfully walk, on the sundial of your life.
World Poetry Review 