"For the Six Strings," published in 1965, is a collection of milongas, short narratives written in something close to our ballad measure, which Mezey and Barnes translate into ABCB quatrains. They celebrate the gangsters and knife-fighters who were legendary in Borges' boyhood. Not very PC, perhaps, but to me they have the power and romance of the Border Ballads. Here's one he wrote at the very end of his life.
Milonga of the Slain Man
I have dreamt it here in this very house,
Within these doors and walls;
God grants that men dream true dreams
As well as the many false.
I have dreamt it oceans away from here
On islands of ice and gloom.
Let the rest be told by hospitals
And the silence of the tomb.
His native land was some province
In the far interior.
(It wouldn't do if word got out
That people die in a war.)
They took him out of the barracks,
They put a gun in his hands,
And sent him out to be slaughtered
With his brother and his friends.
Their conduct was certainly prudent,
Their speeches long and sublime.
They issued him a crucifix
And a gun at the same time.
He heard the vainglorious generals,
Heard their vainglorious sound.
He saw what he never before had seen,
Blood soaking into the ground.
He heard both cheers and curses,
Heard maddened soldiers rave.
The only thing he wanted to know
Was whether or not he was brave.
He found that out at the moment
He felt the bayonet blade:
While his life was streaming out of him
He thought, "I wasn't afraid."
His death was a secret triumph.
Let no one wonder at me
If I feel both grief and envy
At that man's destiny.
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