I have dreamed so much of you
that you lose your reality
Is there still time to reach that living body
and kiss on that mouth the birth
of the voice which is dear to me.
I have dreamed so much of you
that my arms accustomed while embracing your shadow
to folding over my breast would not bend
to the shape of your body perhaps.
And that, before the real appearance of what has haunted me
and ruled me for days and years
I should become doubtless a shade,
O sentimental scales
I have dreamed of you so much that it is no longer right
for me to awaken. I sleep standing my body exposed to
all the appearances of life and love, and you, the only
one who counts today for me, I could touch your brow
and your lips less
than the lips and brow of the finest person who came.
I have dreamed so much of you
walked so much, spoken, lain with your phantom that all
I have to do now perhaps is to be a phantom among
phantoms and a ghost a hundred times more than the
ghost who walks and will walk gaily over the sun-dial
of your life.
Robert Desnos
Translated from the French
by Wallace Fowlie