Nightmare

I dream of a king from bygone ages, crowned
in gleaming metal. His hollow dead eyes glare.
There are no faces like this any more.
Close to his side as faithful as a hound
his long sword presses. Is he Northumbrian?
Norwegian? Northern, certainly. Deep rust
the mighty beard that flows across his breast.
Unseeing eyes return no gaze to mine.
From what unsilvered glass, from what high ship,
from what unconquered seas is this man coming,
grim and grizzled, to oppress my sleep
with age and bitterness? It's me he's dreaming
(I see it now) and passing judgment on.
Day penetrates the night. He hasn't gone.

The original, from La moneda de hierro (1975)

La pesadilla

Sueño con un antiguo rey. De hierro
Es la corona y muerta la mirada.
Ya no hay caras así. La firme espada
Lo acatará, leal como su perro.
No sé si es de Nortumbria o de Noruega.
Sé que es del Norte. La cerrada y roja
Barba le cubre el pecho. No me arroja
Una mirada, su mirada ciega.
¿De qué apagado espejo, de qué nave
De los mares que fueron su aventura,
Habrá surgido el hombre gris y grave
Que me impone su antaño y su amargura?
Sé que me sueña y que me juzga, erguido.
El día entra en la noche. No se ha ido.

Two notes relevant to this sonnet:

1. Borges' great-great-grandfather (via his English grandmother, Francis "Fannie" Haslam) was a Methodist minister from "Northumbria."

2. "'I was always afraid of mirrors,' Borges said in 1971. 'I had three large mirrors in my room when I was a boy and I felt very acutely afraid of them, because I saw myself in the dim light—I saw myself thrice over, and I was very afraid of the thought that perhaps the three shapes would begin moving by themselves ...." Quoted by James Woodall in Borges, A Life (New York: Basic Books, 1996), 15.