Robert Desnos, J’AI TANT RÊVÉ DE TOI translated by C. Francis Fisher
I HAVE DREAMT OF YOU SO OFTEN
I have dreamt of you so often you’ve lost your reality
Is there still time to touch this living body and kiss this mouth, the
birthplace of the voice so dear to me?
I have dreamt of you so often that my arms which have become used to
crossing over my chest as I hug your shadow may no longer fold
around the contours of your body
And faced with the actual appearance of the one who haunts me, controls
me, for days and years, I will surely become a shadow,
Oh, sentimental scales.
I have dreamt of you so often there is likely no more time for me to wake.
I sleep standing, body exposed to all life’s offerings and love and you,
the only one who matters, I could less touch your lips or your
forehead than the lips or forehead of the first person I see.
I have dreamt of you so often, walked, spoken, slept with your ghost, that
I am nothing any longer, and perhaps just a ghost among ghosts, and
a hundred times more shadow than a shadow that walks and will
walk happily on the sundial of your life.
World Poetry Review 