I believe in nothing, in nothing…My,,Nothing’’
is like a furious night, full of the hurricane.
In its profound depths
my lineage was watered by gall.
A cold gust of wind, which freezes
ancient vigor to inaction, weeps in my reason.
Self-despising, I am wounded!
Self-despising, you have put gangrene
in my heart!
Neither a white love nor a hatred makes me tremble,
a blind form in limitless blackness;
and in rhythm after rhythm in my heart there seems
to be said in death-agony:,,Nothing…nothing…’’
My Muse was deceived by the Gods
Of the wandering breeze, of the lamp of the morning star,
of the trembling love of a young sailor,
in the night with its bishop’s robes of opal,
I ask:,,What enigma lies in you?’’ And my Muse
— through my flesh, illumined by tapers—
answers, desolate in her laurels:
— Nothing…
Oh Queen, rancorous, and in mourning!
Porfirio Barba-Jacob
