TO ONE PLAYING Play on with that music all lonely Wandering through me like a breeze Half‑lost in the calm of night, A melody half‑heard only Like the sound of stupendous seas That in motion feel a delight. For in thy rhythm soft pealing, For thou in that meterless rhyme Awakest in me a spirit stress, A widening, deadening of feeling That is to my normal consciousness As Eternity is to Time. 12-1905 Poesia Inglesa . Fernando Pessoa. (Organização e tradução de Luísa Freire. Prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes.) Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1995. - 56. Destinado ao volume «Nonsense». HEART‑MUSIC Leaning almost upon thy breast I heard thy heart's life - made unrest... And thy heart's beating has a sound That reminds me of aught I heard long ago, Long before this life, but what I do not know, I do not know... 'Twas something going round and round Something of terrible and of strange That even now doth shake my soul. I strive to remember - I fail, l fail The unmemoried memory doth shake my soul. ‘Twas something terrible and strange, Going round and going round, And it had a sound like thy heart's beat... The memory hangs on my soul's darkness But notion from my mind doth fleet. I remember but this: it went round and round And now thy heart hath such a sound. 12-1905 Poesia Inglesa . Fernando Pessoa. (Organização e tradução de Luísa Freire. Prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes.) Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1995. - 58. 1ª publ. in Fernando Pessoa: o Amor, a Morte, a Iniciação . Yvette K. Centeno. Lisboa: Regra do Jogo, 1985. AN IDYLL OF TO‑DAY She If every tear of mine were gold And every sigh a tear, Wouldst thou not then with kisses bold Entrap them falling clear? If at each word I spoke of love Pearls rained from out the air, How pleasant would to thee then prove To hear me speak for e'er! He If at each look of love I cast A cheque were signed and made, If each tear's ending were the last Touch of received and paid; If each soft glance were a banknote And the same every sigh. Wouldst thou not have me learn by rote Love's shows of misery? Both What can we do? What are we both But beings of our time? Gold is the meat of living's broth, The vowel of the rhyme. Even a token sad and old. A certain price will woo. Our love would but be true as gold If we were gold all through. 1905 Poesia Inglesa . Fernando Pessoa. (Organização e tradução de Luísa Freire. Prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes.) Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1995. - 58. TO A HAND Give me thy hand. With my wounded eyes I would see what this hand contains: Ah, what a world of hopes here lies! What a world of feelings and doubts and pains! Oh to think that this hand in itself contains The mystery of mysteries. This hand has a meaning thou dost not know, A meaning deeper than human fears; This hand perchance in times long ago Wiped off strange and unnatural tears; Perhaps its gesture was full of snears Perchance its clenching was full of woe. There is that in thy hand my sould doth dream And the shades that haunt my mind; The howl of the wind and the flow of the stream, The flow of the stream and the howl of the wind, All that is horrible and undefined Of the things that are in the things that seem. As I look at thy hand my mind is rife Of thoughts and memories deeper than rhyme; Thy hand is a part of my soul's deep life, And l knew thy hand ere the birth of time, And in ages past it led me to crime, …… A world of woes and of fears and sighs And love that better had been hate, And crimes and wars and victories, And the painful fall of many a state - All these and more that the heart abate My raving soul in thy hand descries. No painter mad, not a fetichist O'er thy hand would be thus held blind. At mere blank thought of its being kissed But my lips l thrill with a fear none find In the waking thoughts of a human mind Save when reason by its own self is missed. Thy hand has a meaning thou dost not know, A meaning deeper than human fears; It has aught of the sea and of the sun's glow And the seasons too and the months and years, And the colour hidden in human tears And the form and number in human woe. Thy hand was a lofty and empty home, A collar of pearls and a castle keep; Thy hand knows well all the thoughts that roam, Thy hand is the music eternal and deep That long ere birth held my soul asleep In a palace quaint with a curious dome. How finely made is this hand of thine With its fingers tapering and white. Soft and palely warm and fine; There is something in it of day and night. Ah, dearest child, could I read aright The text before me deep and divine. There's a kind of Fact that persists and hangs O'er thy hand, as on a scratched scroll: 'Tis as if some thought had buried its fangs In a unknown part of my soul. In a land far in me a bell doth toll, And my heart aches wild as it shrinks or clangs. There is aught of new and wild and unreal In thy hand where my look is pained: ‘Tis as if thy hand in itself could see all Horrible thought, where fear is gained By a drollness mad and dimly sustained As of some wide hint out of the Ideal. There is aught of Personal, of It, of Such In thy hand and o'er me there steals A sense of dread like a murderer's clutch; I know not how, my hand in thine feels An eternal thing and my mad brain reels As if eternity we could touch. I see that hand not a hand, but whence This horrible Fact that creeps in me! Ah, I have of thy hand the seeing intense But aught more than hand in that place I see That abrupt [elision?] did make to be Between thought of things and what we call sense. My thought doth look at thy hand direct Without eyes or sense or aught of this, And my reason at such a thing is wrecked Into such a fear that both pain and bliss Are plunged in conscious unconsciousness For that is no hand that my dreams detect. And I gaze yet more and I shake from me The dream of time and the dream of space, And as a drowner who sinks in the sea I dream of the wonders of all we trace In everything and I plunge full‑face In the sense of what more than seems to be. There is aught of lovely, wild and unbrute In thy hand, and I love it well; In fearing more than pain thoughts of hell By a sudden portal in the Visible I have a glimpse of the Absolute. The sight of thy hand of a horrible heaven The portals mute throws open again Thy hand is like music, in it I gain Passing a wild fear and a bitter pain Weird things more weird than the sense of Seven. All things stare mystery at my mind, But thy hand most, to oblivion conn'd Thrilled with a mute life not all defined, What is thy hand in itself beyond The scope of sense where the heart is fond, The realm of thought where the soul is blind? Where is the soul that thy hand reveals In its own there‑self till its thought affrights? What bells are those that say HAND in peals That traverse impossible infinites? What fills with lightnings of hands the nights Where the sense of dread into thoughts congeals? Take thy hand away; for I now shall dream Of strange and grotesque and unnatural lands Watered by many a painful stream Whose waves are hands, whose banks of hands Of gardens with trees whose leaves are hands And a white stiff hand covering the sun's gleam. Then, on horror worst, they begin to live With a vital life, and to grasp and clutch, And to twitch and squirm till my thoughts unweave, And like worms and snails that my throat should touch My soul qualms and retches at horror such At fear's transcendent superlative. And what more doth follow I cannot say, But it seems that madly I traverse, lone, Tracts of hells where a hand doth stay In such a manner that if a groan Of a madman could in its soul be known It would be to it as to night is day. And my thoughts drag on in their weary strain; Wild and grotesque, or quick or slow, Uncouth and unseemly they reel in my brain, Startingly mad as they go, As a sudden laugh in the midst of woe Or a clown in a funeral train. 1-1906 Poesia Inglesa . Fernando Pessoa. (Organização e tradução de Luísa Freire. Prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes.) Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1995. - 60. 1ª publ. in Fernando Pessoa: o Amor, a Morte, a Iniciação . Yvette K. Centeno. Lisboa: Regra do Jogo, 1985. THE CLOWN Through this mad mind relentless vaults A grim ides weird and wild With a meaning wilder than human fears A clown in grotesque somersaults; And I weep at him as a child In a man's hard tears. There is no roof, there is no floor; Horror! no space is known in all! ‑ Relentlessly I see he vaults! ‑ There is the clown and nothing more, Who ceaselessly doth rise and fall ‑ The clown in grotesque somersaults. Relentless, how relentlessly In me, who seek what means each thing, This spaceless vision neatly vaults! My legs to vault almost forget me. What awful meaning can this bring The clown in grotesque somersaults. 1-1906 Poesia Inglesa . Fernando Pessoa. (Organização e tradução de Luísa Freire. Prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes.) Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1995. - 68. INSOMNIA Last night I had not the blessing Of a deep or a quiet slumber, For thoughts most wild and distressing Every woe and fear expressing My drowsy sense did encumber. And the clock, with its curst possession Of night with its monotone, Is a madman mad with a word-obsession, Sorrowfully lone. A thousand times a reeling Of reason around my world, And around reason feeling The very darkness wheeling In a blacker darkness hurled. And the clock! Ah, its curst possession Of night with its monotone! How it treasured well its word-obsession Dolorously lone! If I slept awhile, without number Came the dreams, and I had not the grace Of the shade of a shadow of slumber. I fell in descent from reason steep, In consciousness pale disgrace; There was a fall half-senseless and deep And I woke with a start from sleep For I struck the bottom of space. And I woke to the clocks's possession Of night with its monotone, Chuckling a meaning past its obsession, Maniacally lone. 1-1906 Poesia Inglesa . Fernando Pessoa. (Organização e tradução de Luísa Freire. Prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes.) Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1995. - 70. SOUL-SYMBOLS My soul ‑ what is my soul? But symbols mute Its horror and confusion can give out: A desert out of space where absolute Reigns expectation full of horrid doubt. It gives the sense that giveth, strange and dark, Some unknown river weird, hauntingly lone, In some old picture storiless, sole work Of some great painter horribly unknown. It is an island out of human track, Mysterious, old within the sea and full Of caves and grottoes unexplored and black, Pregnant with many horrors possible. It is an olden inn with corridors Woven in a labyrinth and scarce of light, Where through the night the sound of shutting doors, Vague in its cause and place, fills us with fright. It is a mountain region wild and free, Precipiced, hid and silent, never seen, Where we dare not think of what might have been Nor wish idea of what things may be. If ever mystery, romance and fear Have shown their heart on canvas and on scroll, It must assuredly to men appear As to mine inner sense appears my soul. It is a vision-desert full of rocks Where all than reason is both more and less, 'Tis a lone coast where the sea's endless shocks Fill with an empty sound its lifelessness. Something of lost, forgotten, vague and dead, Yet waking, as a slumberer mystical Seems to perceive, for who looks knows with dread That something he doth see to make appal. All this my soul is in its weak despair, Full of sense unto pain, of thought to tears, Having for meed of reason a mute care, For company to feeling - woes and fears. So to my glance, as if with opium wide, My very self is grown a mystery; In inexstatic fear Life doth abide And madness like my breath is within me. 2-1906 Poesia Inglesa . Fernando Pessoa. (Organização e tradução de Luísa Freire. Prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes.) Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1995. - 78. Destinado ao volume «Agony». 1ª publ. in «A Poesia Juvenil de Fernando Pessoa». Georg Rudolf Lind. in Estudos sobre Fernando Pessoa . Lisboa: Imprensa Nacional-Casa da Moeda, 1981. What Death doth take for wife is What life has of good and of fair; The pain of passing's knife is Not the less that it is everywhere; All goes, all flows, all life is But the wreck of its own self for e'er. Yet hope we that this going A semblance and lie can but be; That the river that is flowing Will find, how far be it, a sea; That beyond our frail knowing A deeper life eternally Keeps all that seems to wither All that seems to go wits to-day, And that in a way to bother [?] Our subtlest thoughts to dismay Form and matter together Live e'er in a timeless Alway. 3-1906 Poesia Inglesa . Fernando Pessoa. (Organização e tradução de Luísa Freire. Prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes.) Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1995. - 80. GOD'S WORK «God's work ‑ how great his power!» said he As we gazed out upon the sea Beating the beach tumultuously Round the land-head. The vessel then strikes with a crash, Over her deck the waters rash Make horror deep in rent and gash. «God's work» , I said. 7-1906 Poesia Inglesa . Fernando Pessoa. (Organização e tradução de Luísa Freire. Prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes.) Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1995. - 82. Destinado ao volume «Death of God». BLIND EAGLE What is thy name? and is it true that thou A land unknown of men inhabitest? What pain obscure is figured on thy brow? What cares upon thy heart contrive their nest? Of human things the purest and the best No constant beauty doth thy soul allow; And through the world thou bear'st thy deep unrest Lock'd in a smile thine eyes do disavow. Being of wild and weird imaginings, Whose thoughts are greater than mere things can bind, What is the thing thou seekest within things? What is that thought thy thinking cannot find? For what high air has thy strong spirit wings? To what high vision aches it to be blind? 11-1906 Poesia Inglesa . Fernando Pessoa. (Organização e tradução de Luísa Freire. Prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes.) Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1995. - 82. Destinado ao volume «Sonnets in Many Moods». EPITÁFIO Aqui jaz Alexander Search Que Deus e os homens deixaram só, Que sofreu e chorou ser escárneo da natureza. Recusou o Estado, recusou a igreja, Recusou Deus, a mulher, o homem e o amor, Recusou a terra em volta e o céu além. Resumiu assim o seu saber: (...)e amor não há Nada no mundo existe de sincero Salvo a dor, o ódio, a luxúria e o medo E mesmo estes são ainda suplantados Pelos males que causam. Andava pelos vinte anos quando morreu Estas foram as suas últimas palavras: Deus, a Natureza e o Homem, malditos sejam! s.d. Pessoa Inédito . Fernando Pessoa. (Orientação, coordenação e prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes). Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1993. - 67. Tradução: (?) A VERY ORIGINAL DINNER (Texto inglês original não disponível; consultar a bibliografia indicada.) Fernando Pessoa e a Literatura de Ficção . Maria Leonor Machado de Sousa. Lisboa: Novaera, 1978 - . Por isso, muito bem disse Caeiro A Natureza é partes sem um todo. O Universo, como conjunto, síntese e não soma das coisas, é uma ideia abstracta. Por isso não há Universo. Não é por não sabermos se não há; é por sabermos, por isso que ele é uma ideia abstracta, que não há. O exemplo melhor das ideias abstractas e do para que servem são os números , a matemática. Nada mais útil, mas, em si, nada mais falso. Só um louco julga que o número 5, por exemplo, é uma coisa : mas o n. 0 5 é útil, como os outros números, porque é um meio de compreender a realidade, não em si mesma, mas tem utilidade, em relação apenas a nós e à nossa imperfeição. Se os nossos sentidos fossem perfeitos, não precisávamos de inteligência, as ideias abstractas de nada nos serviriam. A imperfeição dos nossos sentidos faz com que não concordemos nunca em absoluto sobre um objecto ou um facto do exterior. Nas ideias abstractas concordamos em absoluto. Dois homens não vêem uma mesa da mesma maneira; mas ambos entendem a palavra «mesa» da mesma maneira. Só querendo visualizar uma mesa é que divergirão; isso, porém, não é a ideia abstracta da mesa. s.d. Poemas Completos de Alberto Caeiro . Fernando Pessoa. (Recolha, transcrição e notas de Teresa Sobral Cunha.) Lisboa: Presença, 1994. - 206. N. do A.: «Alberto Caeiro (entrevista)» OH, SOLITARY STAR Oh, solitary star, that with bright ray Lookst from the bosom of envolving night, Loveliest that none contests thy spaceful way Now when with rivals is the sky not dight. Vouch safe on me to keep thy tiny stare Blinking at night as if in sleepy joy, Or as the sleepy eyes of some young fair Who chides their closing to her thought's warm toy. That there are other stars I well do know And others that may shine more bright and true; And yet I wish them not, for one doth so Outwit decision and attention sue. And if from this thou can no lesson learn. Much hast thou spurned that Goodness may not spurn s.d. Poesia Inglesa . Fernando Pessoa. (Organização e tradução de Luísa Freire. Prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes.) Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1995. - 198. Destinado ao volume «Agony». THE SPEECH Before a poor, ignorant crowd A wild propagandist loud Shrieked a socialistic speech, But such pompous terms and thick, Artistic, scientific Went with each oratoric screech That the crowd in silence heard Wishing of course to applaud, But expecting a strong word They could understand, to laud. «Procrastinators, banditti Reactionary, servile, Full‑considerately vile!ª In this way, pompously witty He talked and the crowd heard on. «You», he continued, «each Don Of financial bloated leer, I excommunicate here Before Justice throne severe; You I detest, I abhor…» Here a laugh applauding rough The wide air from the crowd tore. «That word», they cried in a roar, «We understand well enough!» s.d. Poesia Inglesa . Fernando Pessoa. (Organização e tradução de Luísa Freire. Prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes.) Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1995. - 200. A WINTER DAY I 'Tis a void winter day, sad as a moan. A sense of loneliness, as of a stone Upon a grave, or of a rock in sea Rests like a mighty shadow over me. I am unnerved, unminded by the pall Of solemn clouds that, weighty over all, Curtail the vision; and upon mine ear The City's rumble brings despair and fear To crush my spirit free and wild. The rain, Reiterated horribly, again Beast with its drops at my cold window‑pane With such a sound as makes us know it cold. The world is ghostly, undaylike and old, And weary passengers, with cautious tread, Yet hurried, walk within the streets soul‑dead In the unkindness of their hue of lead. The streets are streamlets, and perpetual A sound of little waters, on roof, on wall, Down in the streets, in pipes, in window‑glass And into rooms doth wetly come and pass. All is the rain's. All is pale wetness, darkness inly cold, A sentiment of waste things and of old Making all things exterior sorrows, pains; And all we hear and feel and know and see Is wrapt around as with a masking cloak In inconceivable monotony. All in the houses and up from the street Is a long watery shuffle of heavy feet, A sound of drenched garments, and a sense Of a sad chillness, latently intense. Through cracks in doors and windows a gust cold Of wind penetrates like a memory of old Times to make freeze my body, ill reclined Upon a couch, a sufferer with my mind. Life in the streets is sad, a monotone More dull than usual ordinariness: Business and work have lost their usual stress, The vender's cries are each of them a moan Grotesque, desolate, as forlorn and half‑dead Hearts might produce which make a war (?) attempt At talking normally, as if they not bled. Half‑childish urchins, gloriously unkempt Laugh at the water that cart‑wheels upshed. The muddy urchins in the streets that play Make shades of envy in my soul to stay. Couples, some newly‑married, others not, Who in the commonness of their no‑thought Have a deep happiness I would not have, A joy to which I would prefer the grave, Pass in the street. some gay and some sedate. I feel me no like men in any way. I envy those - I speak true - without hate And without admiration, isolate (?). I would that l were happy as they are But not with that their happiness. Thus far Such living as theirs is were unto me Misery, penury, monotony. Alas for all who dream! Alas for us, Poor poets, more or less mad, more or less Foolish! In this consists true happiness! In knowing how to be monotonous. Happy are they who can see without sorrow To‑day yield us to‑morrow And yet to‑morrow and to‑day to them Different days because different days, Which are to me (save that they pass) the same. II The view I have of this cold winter day, The deep depression that makes my thoughts stray Is but a symbol and a synthesis Of what my life perpetually is. How deep my thoughts in pain and sadness are! How wreck'd my soul in its intense despair! How desolate, disconsolately mute My heart is of the words that like scents shoot From the full flower of true youthfulness! How locked am I within my own distress! How in the tragic circle soul‑confined Of my abhorred self! Not one ambition leads me - power nor pelf, No wish for fame, no love of poor mankind. But I am weary, desolate and cold E'vn as this winter day. I have grown old In watching dreams go by and pass away Leaving a memory pure and bright Of aught that was and died as light Without the living horror of decay. Is this thy life, irresolute soul of mine? How pale the sun of thy sad morn doth shine! How it forebodes the cloudiness that comes Outstretched wings of the storm whose muffled drums Of warning in the paling day are heard Deep in the distance lesseningly blurred. Thou look'st not death nor evil in the face Poor soul despairing in life's troubled race! All forms of life, all things have been to thee Mutations of eternal misery. All years, all homes to thee have been In the same drama many a change of scene. Thou hast not learned to live, but thou dost cling Madly to life (dreading Death's night severe), As if life or the world were anything! s.d. Poesia Inglesa . Fernando Pessoa. (Organização e tradução de Luísa Freire. Prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes.) Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1995. - 200. MANIA OF DOUBT All things unto me are queries That from normalness depart, And their ceaseless asking wearies My heart. Things are and seem, and nothing bears The secret of the life it wears. All things' presence e'er is asking Questions of disturbing pain With dreadful hesitation tasking My brain How false is truth? How much doth seem Since dreams are all and all's a dream. Before mystery my will faileth Torn with war within the mind, And Reason like a coward quaileth To find More than themselves all things reveal Yet that they with themselves conceal. 19-6-1907 Pessoa Inédito . Fernando Pessoa. (Orientação, coordenação e prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes). Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1993. - 62. Destinado ao volume «Delirium» e ao conjunto «Documents of Mental Decadence». 1ª publ.: «A Poesia Juvenil de Fernando Pessoa». Georg Rudolf Lind. in Estudos sobre Fernando Pessoa . Lisboa: Imprensa Nacional-Casa da Moeda, 1981. EPIGRAM «I love my dreams», I said, a winter morn, To the practical man, and he, in scorn, Replied: «I am no slave of the Ideal, But, as all men of sense, I love the Real.» Poor fool, mistaking all that is and seems! I love the Real wheN I love my dreams. 1906? Poesia Inglesa . Fernando Pessoa. (Organização e tradução de Luísa Freire. Prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes.) Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1995. - 206. FLASHES OF MADNESS I. Thy hand with its lovely fingers And the heavy rings on them! How my soul over them lingers Each finger with a heavy gem, Each ring like a small diadem! When thou and I are alone, One only wish my soul stings — Holding thy hand in my own, All night, while the night-bird sings, To take off and replace thy rings. 1-1906 Pessoa Inédito . Fernando Pessoa. (Orientação, coordenação e prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes). Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1993. - 63. Destinado ao volume «Delirium». THE WOMAN IN BLACK I My tale is simple, sad and brief - As simple as all tales of grief, As brief as all that is ours, though It seem eternal to its woe; No tale of glorious deeds or fair, But one short poem of despair; Dark as all things where man is caught In the fine‑poisoned nets of thought. Here is no flame of love's old fire, Nor song of pent or free desire, No thousand herses [?] fill its plan, But it is centred round one man. A man? A boy, if boyhood be That where is sober misery. About a boy all moves, an elf Careless of happiness or pelf, But fated to sing but himself. I was not born to joy nor love. The earth below, the sky above Compel a sense within my soul That deeply, heavily doth roll, Like a tremendous, mystic sea In lands where dreams alone can be; A feeling that a sadness is, Weeping in broken‑hearted bliss; A sense that is a deep despair - I know not why I should feel this Before the things that are most fair. Beauty is more than pleasure's joy: That which must please is made to cloy, And Nature cloys not with distaste But gives a sorrow [?], as of past Things whence the Present does inherit Something where [...] is and deep Beauty delicious in a sleep That is half‑sadness to the spirit. For Pleasure is not Joy - we know Joy lives as sorrow in the heart; One or the other lives; the dart That Sorrow kills comes from Joy's bow. Pleasure and distaste are not so. Sorrow and Joy are as the strange And unknown forms of life and change That are ignored in depths of ocean: Pure is the depth of their emotion. Pleasure and Pain are not like these, But as on surfaces of seas The alternation of their motion And shows of shifting without end. Joy may like the sun's light transcend The clouds of Pain; Pleasure may be The face and look of Misery. III Ay, Nature chills me with deep fear, For Nature, to my seeing, spent With looking on my woes too near, It is but Mystery eloquent. The plainest stone, the simplest flower - All have a meaning deep and vast, Mocking their living of an hour. But this significance, that hath past So oft to poet’s song and word, Makes them but madmen, even as I, Speaking in outline [?] sense absurd Strange thoughts for beings that must die. But Man to me is dreader still, The thing of thought, feeling and will, Which is so dark unto mine eyes That of the sense he calls his soul - Let not of seeing speak the mole [?] - I cannot dream to theorize. For men, who have wrought creeds and codes And guided nations by the roads Of feeling and of speculation, Have seen as much - nothing - as I Into the world. All could perceive That Nature aught doth signify: Beyond this they could stop or rave. Most raved and therefore could believe. Yet I, naturally wrapt about, Normally, as in feathers the bird, With hesitation and with doubt, Find all the world a thing absurd. Because myself, a part of it, Am an absurdity unfit. Too young I learnt to reason coldly And draw conclusions firmly, boldly, From thoughts and facts to shatter creeds, Careless of man's mendacious needs. Preciseness cast in me the seeds Of madness, and the soil was good For that abnormal growth of pain Whose flowers are red, colour of blood. Too soon I learned to see too clear, And therefore nothing now can capture My heart, to which reasoning is rapture, That sees night where most poets say «'Tis day - I see it all - ­'tis day.ª They sing of joy, T sing of fear. Alas! Why should I stop thus long Over the illness of my life, That has Insanity for wife? Turn I back with an impulse strong. Leave I this shallowness and sing. The deeper sorrow of my song. s.d. Poesia Inglesa . Fernando Pessoa. (Organização e tradução de Luísa Freire. Prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes.) Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1995. - 208. FLASHES OF MADNESS II. When thou seeëst me spend hours Holding in a feverish glance Thy mouth or teeth, or thy hand, And notest how my soul devours With a sleepness like to trance The commonest things that stand And askest what in them I see That into each my spirit delves As if each had a mystery, Thou err'st in thy conjecturings, For what ever obsesses me Is not things in their weary selves But the being there of things. 2-1906 Pessoa Inédito . Fernando Pessoa. (Orientação, coordenação e prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes). Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1993. - 64. Destinado ao volume «Delirium». FLASHES OF MADNESS III. Eyes are strange things. Meaning in them becomes life, Life in them has wings. Look at me thus. Thy glance is mad and rare. Thine eyes show deep and wild an inner strife. How they are more than Horror fair! 1908 Pessoa Inédito . Fernando Pessoa. (Orientação, coordenação e prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes). Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1993. - 65. Destinado ao volume «Delirium». FLASHES OF MADNESS IV. 1. When thou didst speak but now I felt A terror mad and strange. Conceive it thou. I could have knelt To thy lips, to their curve, to its change. The talking curve of thy lips And thy teeth but slightly shown Were my delirium's waking whips. I felt my reason overthrown. A super-sensual fetichism Haunts my deep-raving brain. Greater than ever grows the abysm Of my reason's and feeling's schism, Cut with the pickaxe of pain. More than they show all things contain. 2. Something not of this world doth lie In thy smile, in thy lips live turn; A figure, a form I know not why That wakes in me — without a sigh But with terror I cannot spurn With terror wild and mute — Is it remembrances, is it Desires so vague half-known they flit And not in thought nor sentiment take root? My mind grows madder and more fit In everything to catch and find Meanings, resemblances defined By not a form that thought can hit. Smile not. Thou canst not comprehend! What is this? What truth doth sleep In these ravings without end And beyond notion deep? Laugh not. Know'st thou what madness is? Wonder not. All is mysteries. Ask not. For who can reply? Weep for me, child, but do not love me Who have in me too much that is above me, Too much I cannot call «I». Weep for the ruin of my mind Weep rather, child, that things so deep should move me To lose the clear thoughts that could prove me One worthy of mankind. 5-7-1908 Pessoa Inédito . Fernando Pessoa. (Orientação, coordenação e prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes). Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1993. - 66. Destinado ao volume «Delirium». FLASHES OF MADNESS V. My child, I see thine eyes upon A shadow, as cast by the wings When a swift bird passes close by The castle-window before the sun: So through thy glance the shadows fly... The souls of things dead and bygone Haunt the appearances of living things 12-1905 Pessoa Inédito . Fernando Pessoa. (Orientação, coordenação e prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes). Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1993. - 66. Destinado ao volume «Delirium» EPITAPH Here lieth A[lexander] S[earch] Whom God and man left in the lurch And nature mocked with pain and woe He believed not in state or church Nor in God, woman, man or love Nor earth below nor heaven above. His knowledge did to this about: (...) and love is not Nothing is everywhere sincere Save sorrow, hatred, lust and fear And even these sometimes do look Less than in the ill they work. He died at twenty odd This was is dying sentiment: Accurst be Nature, Man and God. s.d. Pessoa Inédito . Fernando Pessoa. (Orientação, coordenação e prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes). Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1993. - 67. APOLLO UNTO NEPTUNE Apollo unto Neptune said: «Come, I shall drink the sea!» But Neptune laughed out like a lad In his boyish jollity, And cried: «You would drink the earth, if you could, And infinity.» And the poet the symbol who understood Felt his misery. 8-12-1907 Pessoa Inédito . Fernando Pessoa. (Orientação, coordenação e prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes). Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1993. - 68. EPIGRAM «I love my dreams», I said, a winter morn, To the practical man, and he, in scorn, Replied: «I am no slave of the Ideal, But, as all men of sense, I love the Real.» Poor fool, mistaking all that is and seems! I love the Real when I love my dreams. s.d. Pessoa Inédito . Fernando Pessoa. (Orientação, coordenação e prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes). Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1993. - 69. 1ª publ. in A metáfora e o fenómeno amoroso nos poemas ingleses de Fernando Pessoa. Catarina T. S. Edinger. Porto: Brasília Ed., 1982. Bond entered into by Alexander Search, of Hell, Nowhere, with Jacob Satan , master, though not king, of the same place: 1. Never to fall off or shrink from the purpose of doing good to mankinil. 2. Never to write things, sensual or otherwise evil, which may be to the detriment and harm of those that read. S. Never to forget, when attacking religion in the name of truth, that religion can ill be substituted and that poor man is weeping in the dark. 4. Never to forget men's suffering and men's ill. + Satan . his mark October 2nd 1907 Alexander Search 1907 Páginas Íntimas e de Auto-Interpretação. Fernando Pessoa. (Textos estabelecidos e prefaciados por Georg Rudolf Lind e Jacinto do Prado Coelho.) Lisboa: Ática, 1966. - 10. EPITAPHS A.S. (Alex[ander] Search) Here lies a poet who was mad and young The two things may go together As to the songs he sung They were found in winter weather. EPITAPHS FOR THE FUTURE Monarchy Here lies a part of hell that on earth was (It took it long to pass, Riddled by way of Justice […] Here lies the other part. Religion Here lies the beautiful assassin cold who smiled upon his victim and singing Murdering sweet songs to his imagining Till by his each a (...) he sells It died because it was old. 4-7-1908 Pessoa por Conhecer - Textos para um Novo Mapa . Teresa Rita Lopes. Lisboa: Estampa, 1990. - 152. Power has three forms - force, authority and opinion. All the evolution of nations and of societies is fundamentally an ascension on the scale of these, from the first to the last. First came the state of violence, rising slowly out of its pure form in the savage tribes and groups. Then comes the rule of authority, begotten of force. And all rends to, or is at, the sway of opinion, this word meaning, of course, «popular will», «democracy». (The persistence of monarchy, authority's best (...), is [...]). All this evolution represents the gradual approach to the government of the nation by the nation. It begins virtually at an anarchical or semi-anarchical state of things: it is the empire of force, the government of the weak by the strong and of the strong by the stronger. The state of society is then one of [...] stife (if this word may here be used), one of latent or every-day war. Then gradual integration begins; first it is potential. The selection of the fittest begins to split the tribe or nation (no matter how it is called) into two parts. Monarchy and aristocracy are born. This means that force is transformed into authority. Transformed: - be the word noted, for it must not be forgotten - and this is of sovereign importance - that the original basis of authority is force; nor could there be any other basis, any other origin to authority -; authority could not become authority in any other way. s.d. Pessoa por Conhecer - Textos para um Novo Mapa . Teresa Rita Lopes. Lisboa: Estampa, 1990. - 153. Compromisso entre Alexander Search, residente no Inferno, Nenhures, e Jacob Satanás, senhor, embora não rei, do mesmo lugar: 1. Nunca esmorecer nem recuar no propósito de fazer bem à humanidade. 2. Nunca escrever coisas sensuais, ou más a qualquer outro respeito, que possam lesar e prejudicar quem as ler. 3. Nunca esquecer, ao atacar a religião em nome da verdade, que a religião dificilmente pode ser substituída e que o pobre ser humano chora nas trevas. 4. Nunca esquecer o sofrimento e o padecimento dos homens. + A marca de Satanás. 2 de Outubro de 1907 Alexander Search 1907 Páginas Íntimas e de Auto-Interpretação. Fernando Pessoa. (Textos estabelecidos e prefaciados por Georg Rudolf Lind e Jacinto do Prado Coelho.) Lisboa: Ática, 1966. - 10. Trad.: Jorge Rosa EPIGRAMS II To all those people that say That honour and good are dead Many things might well be said; One of them is that they be. 12-10-1908 Poesia Inglesa . Fernando Pessoa. (Organização e tradução de Luísa Freire. Prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes.) Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1995. - 182. EPIGRAMS III If rank [?] the guinea‑stamp but be, Why, to this one thing may be said: That 'tis only midst men we see A guinea‑stamp on head [?] 15-10-1908 Poesia Inglesa . Fernando Pessoa. (Organização e tradução de Luísa Freire. Prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes.) Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1995. - 182. EPIGRAMS IV You tell me, for oft you choose Rude and uncourteous to grow, I can't say «Bo» to a goose... Why, James: Bo! 15-10-1908 Poesia Inglesa . Fernando Pessoa. (Organização e tradução de Luísa Freire. Prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes.) Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1995. - 182. EPIGRAMS V What is the best‑named thing in all The world? Why, this: A papal bull. 16-10-1908 Poesia Inglesa . Fernando Pessoa. (Organização e tradução de Luísa Freire. Prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes.) Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1995. - 182. EPIGRAMS VI Pius, of pious anger full, In's bull makes priests and men of bias Spy us. Although Pius is pious, His bull (if that's a bull) 's a bull. 16-10-1908 Poesia Inglesa . Fernando Pessoa. (Organização e tradução de Luísa Freire. Prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes.) Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1995. - 182. EPIGRAMS VII Pius the Tenth, your letter, bull - Whate'er it is, with great attention I read, although 'tis rather dull; And, to speak true, not to deceive, These words synthetise the impression That from your bull I did receive: - How much of that do you believe? 16-10-1908 Poesia Inglesa . Fernando Pessoa. (Organização e tradução de Luísa Freire. Prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes.) Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1995. - 184. EPIGRAMS VIII He asked me, half in his fine compassion, To sketch in two strokes his portrait high; 'Tis done: a coat strikingly in fashion And a red tie. 12-1905 Poesia Inglesa . Fernando Pessoa. (Organização e tradução de Luísa Freire. Prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes.) Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1995. - 184. EPIGRAMS IX They say that all roads lead to Rome, And, what's more, it is true; But it is clear most of them must Lead crookedly thereto. 24-10-1908 Poesia Inglesa . Fernando Pessoa. (Organização e tradução de Luísa Freire. Prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes.) Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1995. - 184. MEANINGLESS LlNES I became good, and was despised. I became bad; I hated was. If good or bad I was not prized, In good or evil, equal loss. I became bad and good by turns, And thus did but unite two ills. The spleen that now within me burns Therefrom, nor good nor evil stills. 24-10-1908 Poesia Inglesa . Fernando Pessoa. (Organização e tradução de Luísa Freire. Prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes.) Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1995. - 184. Destinado ao conjunto «Documents of Mental Decadence». ON THE ROAD In a cart. Here we go while morning life burns In the sunlight's golden ocean, And upon our faces a freshness comes, A freshness whose soul is motion. Up the hills, up! Down to the vales! Now in the plains more slow! Now in swift turns the shaken cart reels. Soundless in sand now we go! But we must come to some village or town, And our eyes show sorrow at it. Could we for ever and ever go on In the sun and air that we hit; On an infinite road, at a mighty pace, With endless and free commotion, With the sun eter round us and on our face A freshness whose soul is motion! 26-10-1908 Poesia Inglesa . Fernando Pessoa. (Organização e tradução de Luísa Freire. Prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes.) Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1995. - 186. Destinado ao volume «Delirium». ENTREVISTA COM A [ LBERTO ] C [ AEIRO ] Entre as muitas sensações de arte que devo a esta cidade de Vigo, sou-lhe grato pelo encontro que aqui acabo de ter com o nosso mais recente, e sem dúvida o mais original, dos nossos poetas. Mão amiga me havia mandado desde Portugal, para suavização talvez, do meu exílio, o livro de Alb[erto ] Caeiro. Li-o aqui, a esta janela, como ele o quereria, tendo diante dos meus olhos extasiados o (...) da baía de Vigo. E não posso ter senão por providencial que um acaso feliz me proporcionasse, tão cedo empós a leitura, travar conhecimento com o poeta glorioso. Apresentou-nos um amigo comum. E à noite, ao jantar, na sala (...) do Hotel (...), eu tive com o poeta esta conversa, que eu ansiei poder converter-se em entrevista. Eu dissera-lhe da minha admiração perante a sua obra. Ele escutára-me como quem recebe o que lhe é devido, com aquele orgulho espantoso e fresco que é um dos maiores atractivos do homem, por quem, de supor é, lhe reconheça o direito a ele. E ninguém mais do que eu lho reconhece. Extraordinariamente lho reconhece. Sobre o café a conversa pôde intelectualizar-se por completo. Consegui levá-la, sem custo, para um único ponto, o que me interessava, o livro de Caeiro. Pude ouvir-lhe as opiniões que transcrevo, e que, não sendo, claro é, toda a conversa, muito representam, contudo, do que se disse. O poeta fala de si e da sua obra com uma espécie de religiosidade e de natural elevação que, talvez, noutros com menos direitos a falar assim, parecessem francamente insuportáveis. Fala sempre com frases objectivas, excessivamente sintéticas, censurando ou admirando (raro admira, porém) com absolutismo, despoticamente, como se não estivesse dando uma opinião, mas dizendo a verdade intangível. Creio que foi pela altura em que lhe disse da minha desorientação primitiva em face da novidade do seu livro que a conversa tomou aquele aspecto que mais me apraz transcrever aqui. O amigo que me enviou o seu livro disse-me que ele era renascente, isto é, filiado na corrente da R[enascença ] P [ ortuguesa ] mas eu não creio... - E faz muito bem. Se há gente que seja indigna [? ] da minha obra é essa. O seu amigo insultou-me sem me conhecer comparando-me a essa gente. Eles são místicos. Eu o menos que sou é místico. Que há entre mim e eles? Nem o sermos poetas, porque eles o não são. Quando leio Pascoaes farto-me de rir. Nunca fui capaz de ler uma coisa dele até ao fim. Um homem que descobre sentidos ocultos nas pedras, sentimentos humanos nas árvores, que faz gente dos montes e das madrugadas (...)É como um idiota belga dum Verharen, que um amigo meu, com quem fiquei mal por isso, me quis ler. Esse então é inacreditável. - A essa corrente pertence, penso, a Or[ação] à L[uz] de Junqueiro. - Nem poderia deixar de ser. Basta ser tão má. O Junqueiro não é um poeta. É um [... ] de frases. Tudo nele é ritmo e métrica. A sua religiosidade é uma coisa. A sua admiração da natureza é outra coisa. Pode alguém tomar a sério um tipo que diz que é (...) da luz misteriosa juntinho ao altar de Deus. Isto não quer dizer nada. É com coisas que não querem dizer nada, excessivamente nada, que as pessoas têm feito obra até agora. É preciso acabar com isso. - E João de Barros? - Qual? O contemporâneo... A personagem não me interessa. Detesto-a, como o futuro e o destino. A única coisa boa que há em qualquer pessoa é o que ela não sabe. s.d. Pessoa por Conhecer - Textos para um Novo Mapa . Teresa Rita Lopes. Lisboa: Estampa, 1990. - 359. «Sou mesmo o primeiro poeta que se lembrou de que a Natureza existe. Os outros poetas têm cantado a N[atureza] submetendo-a a eles como se eles fossem Deus; eu canto a N[atureza] submetendo-me a ela, porque nada me indica que eu sou superior a ela, visto que ela me inclui, que eu nasço dela e que (...) O meu materialismo é um materialismo espontâneo. Sou profundamente e constantemente ateu e materialista. Não houve nunca, na verdade, um materialista e um ateu como eu... Mas isso é porque o mat[erialis]mo e o at[eísmo] só agora, em mim, encontram o seu poeta.» E A. C. de tão curioso modo acentua o eu, o mim que só vê a falsa natureza em que fala. Dizia-me há tempos esse altíssimo e transviado [ ?] espírito que é Fernando Pessoa (…) s.d. Pessoa por Conhecer - Textos para um Novo Mapa . Teresa Rita Lopes. Lisboa: Estampa, 1990. - 360. Entrevista com Alberto Caeiro LITTLE BIRD Poet Little bird, sing me a sweet song deep Of what is not to‑day; Be it not the future that yet doth sleep In the hall where Time his hours doth keep, More than far away. Sing me a song of the things thou knew'st And desirest e'er, Be it a song to which but is used The heart that has to love refused What is merely fair. Bird Young, too young hither I was brought From the dells and trees; Weep with me - I remember them not Save with a vague and a pining thought: Can I sing of these? Poet Sing, little bird, sing me that song -­ None can be more dear - Come of the spirit that doth long Not for the past with a sadness strong, But for what was never here. Sing me, sing me that song, little bird; I would also sing Of sounds I remember yet never heard, Of wishes by which my soul is stirred Till then bliss doth sting. Bird To breathe that singing I have no might; Sing it deeply thou! I sing when the day is clear and bright And when the moon is so much in night That thy tears do flow. But thou, thou sing'st in woe, in ill, And thy voice is fit To speak of what the wish doth fill With pinings indescribable, Shadows vague of it. Poet Ay, little bird, let us sing in all weather A song, of to‑day, Come of the sense we feel together That nothing that doth die and wither Truly goes away. 10-1-1908 Poesia Inglesa . Fernando Pessoa. (Organização e tradução de Luísa Freire. Prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes.) Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1995. - 158. Destinado ao volume «Agony» [?]. Many an evil, many a bliss Go to make existence' hell, But the greatest evil of all is this: To live and to know it well. Since this from life at once we see Thus simply gathered, Must not the greatest bliss then be To die and know oneself dead? That's true, as far as I guess, That's true and impossible, As far as I know and tell. So much for happiness! 10-1-1908 Poesia Inglesa . Fernando Pessoa. (Organização e tradução de Luísa Freire. Prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes.) Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1995. - 160. THE WORLD OFFENDED I said unto the world one day: «I suspect thee of existence!» And the world showed a smiled resistance To what I did say. «Let us go to court», he replied; «go we Before a Court both wise and rare. Let Reason one judge of our cause be; Imagination be also there And Feeling the judges our cause to hear.» We went before the Court, and Reason Said to me: « Thy crime is half‑treason! The World's acquitted of what thou say'st: Of existence 'tis guilty not. This by the written code of Thought In the pages of Unrest.» (I was but in the costs condemned Of the suit I lost as play; But those, they leave me poor and yet Are more than I can pay.) 10-1-1908 Poesia Inglesa . Fernando Pessoa. (Organização e tradução de Luísa Freire. Prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes.) Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1995. - 160. Destinado ao volume «Delirium». A QUESTION «Tell me», one day to a poet said A deep, brutal man, «If you had to choose between seeing dead Your wife whom you do love so well And the loss complete, irreparable, Of your verses all, instead - Which loss would you rather feel?» The poet glanced with sudden woe And deep distress at him who so Broke with a question ill‑foreseen His inner silence half‑serene, And he did not answer; and the other Smiled, as elder to younger brother: The tortured glance of startled sense And sudden self‑knowledge intense And newness of self‑consciousness Was bitter, as ev'n he could guess. More than a smile were violence. 10-1-1908 Poesia Inglesa . Fernando Pessoa. (Organização e tradução de Luísa Freire. Prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes.) Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1995. - 162. Destinado ao volume «Delirium». A CRIME Do you know the crime I committed Nearly twenty years ago? At that crime my heart is torn. What my crime was do you know? 'T was the crime of being born. And every day another crime I commit, and ever have done Up to now in the face of Time. Do you know what crime this is? 'Tis the crime of living on. Do you know what evil's disgrace Has made an outcast's my lot And sundered me from my race? Do you know what crime is that? 'Tis the crime of having thought. 11-1-1908 Poesia Inglesa . Fernando Pessoa. (Organização e tradução de Luísa Freire. Prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes.) Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1995. - 164. Destinado ao conjunto «Documents of Mental Decadence». THE BELLS Ring, bells, ring - ring out clear! Perhaps by the vague sentiment that you raise - I know not why - you remind me of my infancy. Ring, bells, ring! Your soul is a tear. What does it matter? My childhood's glee - You cannot call it back to me. Ring, bells, ring out your song! You remind me of some happiness (Perhaps one that I never felt), Of what has been, of what lasts not long, Of what was not but seems now a bliss. Something of sorrow, something of despair Is in me by your melody. Sing, sing of the past which was fair - You cannot call it back to me. Though you sing but your set melody, Yet ring out wildly, wildly, bells! Ring out the song that tears out the heart, Speaking of what I know not, sing To and fro till the soul's deep smart Calms itself by too much, too deep in the heart. In the wordless speech of your own Ring out, wild bells, ring out! Ye have something of souls left alone; Ye give me a sorrow, a deep ache of doubt, Ununderstood sentiment sad... Do you sing of my childhood that thus you should moan? Then I was unconscious; now I am mad. Ring out bells! Your sadness that stings Has a sob as an inner sound. I have in me colossal things. Ring on! in your music I am drowned. All in the world has a limit and bound. Ring on, desperate and free! Can ye not of skies and of wings Speak loud to my misery? Speak an ye will; except sorrow and pain Ye bring not anything to me. Ring out, wild bells, clearly, deep! Whatever the pain ye sing of may be - What does it matter? Life, death are one sleep Full of dreams of agony. All is unreal and we blind. Ring out your song! I desire to weep For all that my life might be. All that you call or recall to my mind You cannot bring nor bring back to me. 16-1-1908 Poesia Inglesa . Fernando Pessoa. (Organização e tradução de Luísa Freire. Prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes.) Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1995. - 164. Destinado ao volume «Delirium». PRAYER Oh God, if Thou be'st anything Hear this frail prayer that I fling Like a flame leaping past control From out the hell that is my soul: Oh God, let me not fall insane! I know that half‑mad I am now; I feel behind my youthful brow Horrors it sickens to contain, Ideas that my sense deride And inhibition cast aside; I feel each day, every day At least in one deep moment's hell My consciousness completely stay My reason like a vision reel. Let me not be insane, my God, Torture me in all ways beside, But let me keep, otherwise trod Under the foot of Time, and tried In all the horrors that men know, A little portion of the sense Of things that full is normal men's. Seclude me not completely, no, From men in an unconscious woe. I suffer much, yet let me not, Though thus I suffered not at all, Pass into emptiness of thought, To madness deep which is a gall Filling the soul till bitterness, Becoming part of us, doth steep The whole soul in unconsciousness. A little sense, oh, let me keep! Pour down on me all woes, all ills All else that the strain'd spirit fills. With horror and with terror mute; But madness, madness absolute, Keep from my trembling mind away. The pain that withers and that kills, The love that tears to shreds the heart, The cares that horror and that may Give death with an ignoble smart - All these may come, but oh, let me From madness true keep ever free. No more - who knows but as I write Madness in me is not complete? Who knows, who can see things aright? Where is the true unerring sight Its own deep ills to meet? Who knows but I am mad e'en now? Oh, torture horrible to know! Who knows but when unconscious I Or thinking that I dream pass by, People say not: «there goes the youth That is a madman» all in truth? Who tells me that while now I think That genius I possess and have, That inspiration I do drink Of all before, beyond the grave, I do not rave, entirely rave? Who knows, who anything can tell? - My brain is reeling as I write Void am I and anxious of light - That I am not in madness quite... Oh doubt, oh agony, soul‑hell! No more, no more; let me believe That I am sane, and, oh God, hear Whate'er thou beest, my true prayer Shaken from my soul's giant fear... Torture me in all ways that are, Let me be scorned and crushed and trod, Plunged in full conscious agony, Let me become a fear, a care, But madness, madness, oh my God, Do not let madness come to me! 18-1-1908 Poesia Inglesa . Fernando Pessoa. (Organização e tradução de Luísa Freire. Prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes.) Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1995. - 166. Destinado ao volume «Agony». MOMENTS I The hen said «I can fly». Do you know why? Over a fence she flew. The eagle said «Can I fly?» Can you tell why? Unto the stars she could not go. 28-1-1908 Poesia Inglesa . Fernando Pessoa. (Organização e tradução de Luísa Freire. Prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes.) Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1995. - 170. MOMENTS II Baby came into the world. In a basket full of flowers Which a fairy brought, an angel From the paradisal bowers. 28-1-1908 Poesia Inglesa . Fernando Pessoa. (Organização e tradução de Luísa Freire. Prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes.) Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1995. - 172. MOMENTS III A philosopher of name In the best of mind once said: «Man is... » the rest is immaterial And need not be chronicled. 18-1-1908 Poesia Inglesa . Fernando Pessoa. (Organização e tradução de Luísa Freire. Prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes.) Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1995. - 172. INACTION A thousand hearts are labouring for the good Of poor mankind ill-civilized and chill; A thousand minds are making war to ill With thought or feeling ponderate or rude. And I alone, as if not understood By me the suffering that the sense doth fill, Am sunk in an abeyance deep of will In a wild, crazy somnolence of mood. Thus show I mute and cold to misery Yet not suspected thoughts like dim clouds float, The presages of horrors, in my mind. Thus am I miserable and my soul in me, A skilful helmsman in a helmless boat, Is like one loving beauty yet born blind. 23-9-1907 Poesia Inglesa . Fernando Pessoa. (Organização e tradução de Luísa Freire. Prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes.) Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1995. - 114. Destinado ao volume «Agony». Never have I so deeply felt my exclusion from mankind. To one side the sane, to the other side the lame and the halt and the blind; To one side the healthy, the good, the strong, those in life's prime, To the other side the slaves of genius, of madness, of crime. Build prisons and hospitals and Bedlams. To one side the glad, To the other side the sickly, the stupid, the ill and the mad. At no time have I felt so deep the gulf between me and men. Is it idiocy, madness or crime, or genius - or what is this pain? I have felt it to-day with full truth and have felt to remember it well: I am one thrown aside ‑ a torturer and tortured in my being's hell; Yet I asked not to live, nor had choice of my living's rotten worth, I had no power on my life, nor am I guilty of my birth. So I shall sing my song without hope, cheerless and forlorn, That men may learn - at least they may laugh - to what some hearts are born; Song all mystery, all symbols, contradictions in ignoble dance, But that this is madness complete not the smallest ignorance; Song all of tortures of soul, of a being's human abysm And never a doubt but this is but raving egotism; Song of evil, song of hate, song of revolt, song of love Of Nature, of Mother Nature, the earth at my feet and the sky above; Song of the hatred of customs, of creeds, of conventions, of institutions Song of madness unpondering to human prostitutions; Song of one that better were dead, song of one set aside, Song of one that hell and earth conspired and combined to deride. Peace! let the sane be set on that side and the mad on this side. 16-10-1907 Poesia Inglesa . Fernando Pessoa. (Organização e tradução de Luísa Freire. Prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes.) Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1995. - 114. Destinado ao volume «Agony». 1ª publ.: «Fernando Pessoa e a Loucura» e «A Poesia Juvenil de Fernando Pessoa». Georg Rudolf Lind. in Estudos sobre Fernando Pessoa . Lisboa: Imprensa Nacional-Casa da Moeda, 1981. HORROR In the darkness of my soul, Just as dark as the souls of men, By the blessing of their eternal curse, Flashes like a bodiless ghoul, In its rare fulness above all ken, The sense of the sense of the universe. And such a cowardice of thought, Absorbing all my life and all I have in me, more gall than gall, Takes me, that I fear to open my eyes And my mind to a most horrid surprise, And I feel my being near to suppression In a horror past Fancy's confession. More than the cowardest of beasts Before a gaping flash overhead, More than the drunkard in his unrests Who sees visions of more than dread, More than all that fear can conceive, More than madness can make to believe, More than cannot be imagined, The sense of the mystery of all, When it flashes on me full as can be, Doth my maddened soul appal. Speak it not ‑ nor can it be spoken, - No, not the shadow of the sensation, Of the chord of sanity that is broken In me by that moment's distress And intensity of negation; Think it not, thought is powerless This horror less than to express. The meanest thing grows terrible And the basest thought sublime - All in a world more horrible Than the sense of the soul of time, Than the fear of the depth of death, Than the remorse of more than crime. ‘Tis half as if its solution it brought, That mystery that foul is as rot. Yet if it did so bring Dead were my thought And my whole self dead as any thing: 'Tis this that coarsely men can name, Looking on the face of God. And that feeling, that sense can more than maim The spirit, more than make it a clod; It would kill outright straight, outright, With a shock of which hell is no mirror, More than is known in terror, More than is dreamt of fright. 17-10-1907 Poesia Inglesa . Fernando Pessoa. (Organização e tradução de Luísa Freire. Prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes.) Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1995. - 116. Destinado ao volume «Delirium». 1ª publ. in Estudos sobre Fernando Pessoa . Lisboa: Imprensa Nacional-Casa da Moeda, 1981. ASPIRATION Joyless seeing me to be Mother Nature asked of me: «What desirest thou? Whence comes this thy misery? Whence the sadness on thy brow? Tell me what thy wish is.» - «To give it thou art powerless. Something lovelier than love, Bluer than the sky above, Truer than the truth we have Something better than the grave, Aught that in the soul has root, Something that no mistress' kiss Nor mother's love can substitute. But I, dreaming, do pollute With my dream its object's day.» In the silence absolute Of my soul I hear it say: ´'Love can make me but to weep, Glory maketh me but pine. Give the world with my keep, And still nothing will be mine.'» - «But what feelest thou in thee?» - «Hope and misery the first, Then despair and misery. ´Oh, it is a desire, a thirst The limits of my soul to burst, To spring outside my consciousness, I know not how nor why; A wish with moonlight wings to fly Past the high walls of distress. Lifting my most daring flight Up, far up, beyond all night, More than eagles fly in air Would I in that atmosphere. «Something more near to me in space Than my body is. In fine Something than myself more mine. Something (in what words to trace Its nature?) nearer in its bliss To me than my own consciousness. The Something I desire is this. It is further than far away And yet (its nature how to find?) Closer to me than my mind, Nearer to me than to-day.» 22-10-1907 Poesia Inglesa . Fernando Pessoa. (Organização e tradução de Luísa Freire. Prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes.) Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1995. - 120. SONG OF THE LEPER He was a nauseous leper Who in the ruins was; There ever and anon The hollow wind did pass, And wild and feeble and yellow all Was the grass. And the leper sang this song: «The leper is excluded from his race, The leper is driven out, The leper is thrust out From hall and street and way; He must not show his face Where human beings may. For him there are whips and stones; He cannot even stay Where mongrels fight for bones And are allowed to play. «No beast as the poor leper is Worms and snakes have greater bliss. But the leper is accurst And he knows that well accurst Is he because a nauseous leper, Of evil things the worst. «The toad, the newt, the viper Are tolerate and borne, But the vile and nauseous leper Makes vomit in deep scorn; Repugnance is for him Inevitably born «Sometimes he hears the laughter Of human feast to come, And music followed, after By sounds of peace and of home. Upon the wind they stray, The wind bears them away, And the nauseous leper, he remains, Through night, through day, Alone with his sores, with his pains. And bands of strollers pass, Taking the road afar, For in the ruins they know well The leper's sores there are. And if perchance they see The leper from their way, He sees their finger point And he knows that they say: «He is the nauseous leper Who in the ruins doth sit; He is viler than the plague, More loathsome far than it; If near to him we dared do come Upon him we would spit.» «Poor leper who is a man, Poor leper who is alive, Under his being's ban, Whose torture's chain unearned No pity comes to rive. «A Hand of Might created The newt, the toad, the viper, But gave them not its worst; Kept them from loneliness, Gave them their kindred's bliss. But that hand made the leper And it made the leper leper: And that Hand Almighty is Of all things the most curst. 25-10-1907 Poesia Inglesa . Fernando Pessoa. (Organização e tradução de Luísa Freire. Prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes.) Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1995. - 122. Destinado ao volume «Agony». IN THE STREET I pass before the windows lit With inward, curtained light, And in the houses I see flit Now and again shadows that hit The curtain's yellowed white. Others a little gleam but show: Inside, the people chat, I know. And I feel cold and feel alone, Not that I no one have, But - ah that dreams should ne’er be done! - That among many I am one, As among flowers a grave; One, and more lonely than can be Imagined conceivably. If l were born not to aspire Beyond the life that lead These people whom life cannot tire, Who chat and slumber by the fire Contentedly indeed, Behind those curtains, by that light That to the street is somewhat bright; Could I no more aspire than these, Were all my wishes bound In family or social ease, In worldly, usual jollities Or children playing round, Happy were I but to have then The usual life of usual men. But oh! I have within my heart Things that cannot keep still - A mystic and delirious smart That doth a restlessness impart, An ache, a woe, an ill; I wearied Sysyphus I groan Against the world's ironic stone. I, the eternally excluded From socialness and mirth, The aching heart whose mind has brooded Till thought turned raving mad hath flooded The soul that gave it birth ­- I weep to know I have in me Aught at once joy and misery. And cold before the normal, cold And fear‑struck I remain, As one old, formidably old, Who doth portentous secrets hold That he cannot explain But which the world's show doth suggest Unto his mind that knows not rest. How good after dinner to chat And sit in half a sleep, Without a duty‑sense to strike flat All ease, all cosiness to abate An aspiration deep; To have an ease no pains do throng Nor felt as an ease that is wrong. A home, a rest, a child, a wife ­- None of these are for me Who wish for aught beyond this life With an incessant inner strife That knows not victory. Ay me! and none to comprehend This wish that doth all things transcend. Some in some theatre are away Or other place of joy And keep, for ever glad and gay, The hounds of thought and care at bay That cannot laugh or toy: These are awaited in some homes, A faint light from their windows comes. A cosiness these homes must steep In something like a slumber, And in that surface‑living deep 'Tis hard to know that hearts do keep. ...... Yet these are normal; I that sigh And dread their living - what am I? Oh joy! oh height of happiness! To wish no more than life, To feel of pleasure, of distress, A normal more, a normal less, By friend or child or wife! None of these for my soul can be For more than madness is in me. I weep sad tears - oh, not to live As these in human joy! Oh, that I could as much believe As sense and custom joint can give Which living cannot cloy! Man's happiness is poor, I know, But true - a thing all unlike woe. Sometimes I dream that I might sit By my own fire, and quiet Might see my wife and children flit Half in a sleep and not a whit In one of dreamy riot; And I might noble be and pure In mind, not stupid or obscure. Sometimes I dream one of these homes Secluded socially One for the many thousand tomes Of life might keep my heart that roams Weak, desolate and free; That quiet haply might console My aching heart, my pining soul. But as the thought of such a glad Existence simple here, As if the thing a venom had I shiver, tremble and grow sad As with a mystic fear; I dread to think my life might pass Like that of men, as is and was. I dread to think of a life sweet By family and friends. Mine eyes the finite that they meet Abhor - the houses and the street. And all things that have ends. I know not to what I aspire, Yet know this I cannot desire. So always incompatible And by the usual cold, I go about, my own deep hell, Hearing to toll in me the bell That tells me I grow old, Yet this in such an accent strange lt bears the mystery of Change. And so - alas! must e'er I be A stranger everywhere; The leper in his leprosy In his exclusion nears not me Who cannot living bear: The world my home, my brother men Are prisons, chains that bind and pen. I pass. The windows are behind, And I forget their peace, But tremble yet at what my mind Conceives and feels; and in the wind I wander without cease, Glad yet sad in me to perceive Something none other can conceive. 12-11-1907 Poesia Inglesa . Fernando Pessoa. (Organização e tradução de Luísa Freire. Prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes.) Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1995. - 126. Destinado ao volume «Agony». 1ª publ.: «Alexander Search entre o Sono e o Sonho». Stephen Reckert. in Yvette K. Centeno e Stephen Reckert. Fernando Pessoa (Tempo, Solidão, Hermetismo) . Lisboa: Moraes Ed., 1978. RAGE I feel a rage - ay, a rage! At time that passes, passes away, A thirst of life nought can assuage, An anger that nothing can stay. And every hour that passes by And merges into night a day Makes, when I think, my soul to cry: «Torture eternal, torture without end! All days pass and not a deed! A desire strong as a greed By an ill of will - oh, misery! To be a dream of pain condemned!» I feel a rage! 'tis to feel Mystery and sadness at one time, Till the maddened brain doth reel, Looking on that bodiless curse. The passing of the world, as one Paralytic at a deed of blood Which he hath no power to avert. I feel a stranger before the sun, A weeper before field and flood, A cynic before dirt, A revolt before God. 3-12-1907 Poesia Inglesa . Fernando Pessoa. (Organização e tradução de Luísa Freire. Prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes.) Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1995. - 132. Destinado ao volume «Agony». SONG OF DIRT Come, let us speak of dirt! God's curse is on our head. Let our lips irreverence blurt! We are sufferers all; let us, instead Of prayer, offer God the sacrifice Of our minds that he curst with crime and vice, Of our frames that diseases make dread! Let us offer the tyrant of all, To hang in the hall of his palace of pain, A funeral pall, And a bride's white dress with a stain, And a widow's weeds, and the crumpled sheets From the bed of the wife. Let them be symbols of human strife! Give we God the dirt of the streets Of our spirit, made mud with our tears, The dust of our joys, the mire of our fears, And the rot of our life! 4-12-1907 Poesia Inglesa . Fernando Pessoa. (Organização e tradução de Luísa Freire. Prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes.) Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1995. - 134. Destinado ao volume «Death of God». THE GIANTESS I saw a comic giantess At a tremendous feast alone, Striving to eat some gorgeous mess That formed a hard whole, as a stone. But for her mouth it was too much That, her avidity being such, It doubled her void wish's hell; And her mouth's wide, impotent clutch Would have made laugh, did it not quell Laughter with being horrible. At her impossible, void feast I saw her and, seeing her despair, «What's that too large thing that to eat You idly strive?» I asked of her ; And I laughed out serene and rude. She wept wild tears and said, «This meat That by its greatness doth elude My constant gaping, wild and sore, Is Beauty whole and complete.» I looked at her and laughed no more, But I wept, for I understood. 6-12-1907 Poesia Inglesa . Fernando Pessoa. (Organização e tradução de Luísa Freire. Prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes.) Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1995. - 136. 1ª publ. in «A Filosofia Hermética na obra de Fernando Pessoa». Yvette K. Centeno. in Fernando Pessoa: os Trezentos e outros Ensaios . Lisboa: Presença, 1988. BUILD ME A COTTAGE... Build me a cottage deep In a forest, a simple, silent home, Like a breath in a sleep, Where all wish may be never to roam And a pleasure all smallness may keep. A palace high then build, With confusion of lights and of rooms, A strange sense to yield, Whither my desire from the cottage's glooms May go, to return, unfulfilled. Then dig me a grave, That what cottage nor palace can give I at length may have, That the weariness of all ways to live May cease like the last of a wave. 20-12-1907 Poesia Inglesa . Fernando Pessoa. (Organização e tradução de Luísa Freire. Prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes.) Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1995. - 138. NIRVANA A non-existence deeply within Being, A sentient nothingness ethereal, A more than real Ideality, agreeing Of subject and of object, all in all. Nor Life, nor Death, nor sense nor senselessness, But a deep feeling of not feeling aught; A calm how deep! ‑ much deeper than distress, Haply as thinking is without the thought. Beauty and ugliness, and love and hate, Virtue and vice ‑ all these nowise will be; That peace all quiet shall eliminate Our everlasting life ‑ uncertainty. A quietness of all our human hopes, An end as of a feverish, tired breath... For fit expressions vainly the soul gropes; It is beyond the logic of our faith. An opposite of joy's stir, of the deep Disconsolation that our life doth give, A waking to the slumber that we sleep, A sleeping to the living that we live. All difference unto the life we have, All other to the thoughts that through us roam; It is a home if our life be a grave, It is a grave if our life be a home. All that we weep, all to which we aspire Is there, and like an infant on the breast, We shall e'er be with more than we desire And our accursed souls at last shall rest. 1906 Poesia Inglesa . Fernando Pessoa. (Organização e tradução de Luísa Freire. Prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes.) Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1995. - 84. Destinado ao volume «Delirium». 1ª publ.: «O Espólio e a Biblioteca de Fernando Pessoa: uma solução para alguns enigmas». Yvette. K. Centeno. in Yvette. K. Centeno e Stephen Reckert. Fernando Pessoa (Tempo. Solidão. Hermetismo) . Lisboa: Moraes, 1978. THE UNNATURAL AND THE STRANGE The unnatural and the strange Have a perfume of their own Full of the constancy in chance, Of the smile at heart a groan: The unnatural and the strange Have a perfume of their own. Flowers are they in a vase Of no human workmanship, The unnatural that dismays And the strange strong as a whip: Flowers are they in a vase Of no human workmanship. They have the scent of troubled peace, Of disturbed halls of joy, This the scent they have, which is A thing half to sting and cloy: They have the scent of troubled peace, Of disturbed halls of joy. The unnatural and the strange Have a perfume of their own That of human flesh, of change Made corruption without moan: The unnatural and the strange Have a perfume of their own. 1906 Poesia Inglesa . Fernando Pessoa. (Organização e tradução de Luísa Freire. Prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes.) Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1995. - 86. SONG Sun to-day and storm to-morrow. Never can we know When is joy or when is sorrow, Happiness or woe... The clock strikes. To-day is gone. Man, proud man, oh think thereon! From delight we pass to sadness From a smile to tears; And the boldness of our gladness Dies within our fears. The clock strikes. An hour is past. Think, oh think, how all doth waste! 1906 Poesia Inglesa . Fernando Pessoa. (Organização e tradução de Luísa Freire. Prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes.) Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1995. - 88. Destinado ao volume «Death of God». THE VULTURES Oh, vultures that this bleak land shows Where, the wild wind with fury blows, What are those bones beneath your wing? - They are Hermagoras, the king. His queen to another court hath gone, Another king sits on his throne, His riches all are in the East, Elsewhere his courtiers dance and feast. We have made his rotting flesh our food, His gentle skin to tear was good; For his mantle black and his fair array His servants took as here he lay. The sun hath bleached his skeleton And ants and worms do breed thereon, And those he loved if they go by Disdain his bones beneath the sky. 13-1-1907 Poesia Inglesa . Fernando Pessoa. (Organização e tradução de Luísa Freire. Prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes.) Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1995. - 39. Destinado ao volume «Death of God». 1ª publ. in Fernando Pessoa e a Literatura de Ficção . Maria Leonor Machado de Sousa. Lisboa: Novaera, 1978. SONNET Lady, believe me ever at your feet, When all the Venus in you you condense Unto a gesture natural and sweet, Full-filled with purity's white eloquence. Your sentient arm so softly did incense The love of beauty in my soul complete, That I had given the dearest things of sense For that your gesture natural and sweet. Genius and beauty, and the things that mar The love of life with Love's own purest glow, Out of all thinking, all unconscious are; And even you, sweet lady, may not know How much that gesture was to me a star Leading my bark upon a sea of woe. 3-1907 Poesia Inglesa . Fernando Pessoa. (Organização e tradução de Luísa Freire. Prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes.) Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1995. - 90. REGRET I would that I were again a child And a child you sweet and pure, That we might be free and wild In our consciousness obscure; That we might play fantastic games Under trees silent and shady, That we might have fairy-book names, I be a lord, you a lady. And all were a strong ignorance And a healthy want of thought, And many a [prank?], many a dance Our unresting feet had wrought; And I would act well a clown's part To your childish laughter winning, And I would call you my sweetheart And the name would have no meaning. Or sitting close we each other would move With tales that now gone are sad; We would have no sex, would feel no love, Good without fighting the bad. And a flower would be our life's delight And a nutshell boat our treasure: We would lock it in a cupboard at night As in memory a pleasure. We would spend hours and days like a wealth Of goodness too great to cloy, We would deep enjoy innocence and health Knowing not we did enjoy... Ah, what bitterest is is that-alone Now one feeling in me I trace - That knowledge of what from us hath gone And of what it left in its place. 29-5-1907 Poesia Inglesa . Fernando Pessoa. (Organização e tradução de Luísa Freire. Prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes.) Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1995. - 90. Destinado ao volume «Agony». 1ª publ. in Fernando Pessoa: o Amor, a Morte, a Iniciação . Yvette K. Centeno. Lisboa: Regra do Jogo, 1985. DEATH IN LIFE Another day is past, and while it past, What have I pondered or conceived or read? Nothing! Another day has gone to waste. Nothing! Each hour as it is born is dead. I have done nothing. Time from me has fled, And unto Beauty not a statue raised! By thought's firm power no creed nor lie debased By this young useless and wearied. Is it my lot then ever to remain Like a grain of sand upon the beach, A thing at will of wind, at will of sea? Alas, that aught that wishes and has pain, Because e'er fall'n from what its power should reach Less than a thing inanimate should be! 30-5-1907 Poesia Inglesa . Fernando Pessoa. (Organização e tradução de Luísa Freire. Prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes.) Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1995. - 92. Destinado ao volume «Sonnets in Many Moods». 1ª publ.: «Alexandre em “Busca” de Fernando, ou cinco breves notas sobre a poesia de Alexander Search, seguidas de oito poemas seus e respectivas traduções. » Vasco Graça Moura. in Actas do 1º Congresso Internacional de Estudos Pessoanos . Porto: Brasília Ed. - Centro de Estudos Pessoanos, 1979. WOE SUPREME A friend said once to me: «All that thou writest, Surely 'tis fancy, and pretence, and feigned; Surely the moaning wherewith thou affrightest The healthy mind is preconceived and strained! ´ln all the songs and tales that thou indictest Why's there no word that is not hard or pained? Why in good things and true thou not delightest, But even in youth by thee joys are disdained?» Because, dear friend, thought to be mad is sweet Sometimes, and though at others nameless woe, Yet never human pain the pain can meet Of the mad brain that doth its madness know; Because my science learn'd has made complete The knowledge of an ill that cannot go. 8-6-1907 Poesia Inglesa . Fernando Pessoa. (Organização e tradução de Luísa Freire. Prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes.) Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1995. - 94. Destinado ao volume «Agony». 1ª publ.: «Fernando Pessoa e a Loucura». Georg Rudolf Lind. in Estudos sobre Fernando Pessoa . Lisboa: Imprensa Nacional-Casa da Moeda, 1981. DOUBT Tell me, tell me who dreams most - He who sees the world aright Or the man in dreaming lost? What is true? What is't that seems - The lie that's in reality Or the lie that is in dreams? Who is unto truth less near - He who sees all truth a shadow Or he who sees dreams all clear? He who is a good guest, or he? Who feels alien at the feast? 19-6-1907 Poesia Inglesa . Fernando Pessoa. (Organização e tradução de Luísa Freire. Prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes.) Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1995. - 94. Destinado ao volume «Delirium» e ao conjunto «Documents of Mental Decadence». 1ª publ. in A metáfora e o fenómeno amoroso nos poemas ingleses de Fernando Pessoa. Catarina T. S. Edinger. Porto: Brasília Ed., 1982. ADORNED Great Venus' statue, as men do conceive, Wore it a jewel would all spoiled be; Yet beauty's not alone simplicity. Thus men with thoughts the eyes of sense deceive. Oh, on a lake did they never perceive A perfect boat, or a sail in the sea At night that passes, far, mysteriously, And in the heart a pining strange doth leave? Ah, me! Upon a young and virgin breast When it a jewel richly doth adorn, Each to the other lends beauty and splendour, As o'er the tremulous sea the stars at rest, As flow'r and dew - but more; my heart is torn That neither words nor thoughts that spell can render. 19-6-1907 Poesia Inglesa . Fernando Pessoa. (Organização e tradução de Luísa Freire. Prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes.) Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1995. - 96. Destinado ao volume «Sonnets in Many Moods». HERE AND THERE Here is the same as there, my friend, All places in this world are like. If doomed thy life in grief to spend, What change can then thy fate amend, What from thy soul the pain can strike? When pain doth wound the tired heart And grief doth tie the fevered eye, Some joy indeed the world's great art May to thy pained soul impart - What's this if joy in thee not lie? When on my restless couch I lie And count the throbbing of my breath, I see the joy of earth and sky Yet hate it all; why should not I So keep my coward mind from death? True joy comes not from outward show But in our deepest soul doth rest. What matter if the sun can glow And stars at night look sweetly so When hearts are by their grief opprest? For when the darkness weighs thy thought, And night doth fall upon thy soul, Are not again thy sorrows brought? Is not thy mind in shadows caught? Do fears not back upon thee roll? I cannot do but hope; as mine Thy mind I see to hopes doth bend; I in my land and thou in thine We suffer both - our griefs entwine. Here is the same as there, my friend. 1904 Poesia Inglesa . Fernando Pessoa. (Organização e tradução de Luísa Freire. Prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes.) Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1995. - 42. SOUVENIR How sweetly sad it is sometimes to hear Some old loved sound to memory recalled, To see, an if in dreams, some old dear face, Some landscape's stretch, some field, some dale, some stream A memory so sudden, sad and pleasant, Aught that recalls the days of happy youth. Then spring in happy pain the tears that wait, Those subtle tears that wait on thought, and all - Field stream and voice - all that we hear or see - Goes from the sense, adorned with mem’ry’s hand And merges slowly into dreamy light. I wake; alas! by dreams l was betrayed. Tis but a semblance that l feel and hear Because the past, alas! cannot return. These fields are not the fields I knew, these sounds Are not the sounds I knew: all those are gone, And all the past - alas! cannot return. 1904 Poesia Inglesa . Fernando Pessoa. (Organização e tradução de Luísa Freire. Prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes.) Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1995. - 44. THOUGHT How great a thing is thought! as through the gloom Of stormy skies the sudden lightning curls, As slow the storm in patience grim unfurls Its mighty volume of resounding boom, Thought comes, more bright than Reason's sun which hurls Its constant beams around till verge of doom - Or as the silver‑chequered shades which loom 'Neath Fancy's moon in windy queerest whirls. Thought comes, but blinds the glaring mental sight, But shakes our mind with echoes of its roar And bears its force beyond our visual scope; Horrible beauty and unpitying might That often kills and tears, to rise no more, The frailest fabric of a dreary hope. 1904 Poesia Inglesa . Fernando Pessoa. (Organização e tradução de Luísa Freire. Prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes.) Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1995. - 46. MEN OF TO‑DAY Men of to‑day and yester's nought, Before you were the things we see Who gave a guess or gave a thought That such as you to‑day should be? Ah, passers by the common way, Who thought of ye before to‑day? Men of to‑day, to‑morrow's dust, When years have past where shall ye go? What vulgar daub or hurried lust [...] Shall chronicle your joy and woe? Waves on the crest of life's swift sea, After to‑day who'll think of ye? Genius alone can rouse the fire That in your glorious nature lies; Genius alone can strike the Iyre And raise your name to mortal skies; Genius of death can tear the pall And yester's nought may be an all. But virtue, fool, like human tears, By sand of earth too surely drunk, Sinks in the dust of passing years, Nor knowest thou where has it sunk. Let genius then the laurel wear; To‑morrow's dust may live for e'er. 1904 Poesia Inglesa . Fernando Pessoa. (Organização e tradução de Luísa Freire. Prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes.) Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1995. - 48. JOSEPH CHAMBERLAIN Their blood on thy head, whom the Afric waste Saw struggling, puppets with unwilful hand, Brother and brother: their bought souls shall brand Thine own with horror. Be thy name erased From the full mouth of men; nor be there traced To thee one glory to thy parent land; But'fore us, as'fore God e'er do thou stand In that thy deed forevermore disgraced. Where lie the sons and husbands, where those dear That thy curst craft hath lost? Their drops of blood, One by one fallen, and many a cadenced tear, With triple justice weighted trebly dread, Shall each, rolled onward in a burning flood, Crush thy dark soul. Their blood be on thy head! 2-1905 Poesia Inglesa . Fernando Pessoa. (Organização e tradução de Luísa Freire. Prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes.) Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1995. - 48. BEGINNING Darkness and storm outside make inward gloom, Quiet and home within and useless pain Weigh down upon me as a wasted life, Save where from the vile tomb Of day there comes a semblance of a strife Through the blown varying of the pallid rain. Before the thunder shall the mansion shake A blankly‑smiling day informs our eyne, And there is here a ghastness and a gale That make my frail form quake; And strange to me who think all things must quail, A voice is raised in joy ­- alas! not mine. Why cannot youth be joyous, full of love? Why am I made the corpse that woes and fears And problems grim and world‑enigmas dire Should like a body wove Close to my nature, in which is a fire The feverous source of Iying pains and tears? Blow hard, thou wind; look pale, thou awful day! Ye cannot in your dread and horror match The thing that I bear in me and is me, These idle thoughts that stray Subordinate to the deep agony Of him who hears the gate of reason's latch Fall with a sound of termination, As of a thing locked past and for e'er done. 3-1905 Poesia Inglesa . Fernando Pessoa. (Organização e tradução de Luísa Freire. Prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes.) Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1995. - 50. Destinado ao volume «Agony». RESOLUTION Why do I waste in dreams fruitless and vain The substance of my youth in idle tears?. Why do I count with feverish eye the years And number with sad heart the ways of pain? Why should I weep thus, since there is no gain To me, to men from sighings and from fears? Since from afar at me the future sneers, The while the past with me cannot remain. High Heaven, that errs not and that wills not wrong To each on earth doth give a work to do, A distant recompense and rest remote; I'll to my work then, so God make me strong To bring the Demons of mine own self to Their knees, and take the Devil by the throat. 7-5-1905 Poesia Inglesa . Fernando Pessoa. (Organização e tradução de Luísa Freire. Prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes.) Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1995. - 52. Destinado ao volume «Agony». 1ª publ. in Fernando Pessoa no Seu Tempo . Lisboa: Biblioteca Nacional, 1988. TO ENGLAND (when English journalists joked on Russia’s disasters) I How long, oh Lord, shall war and strife be rolled On the God‑breathing breast of slumbering man, Horrible nightmares in the doubtful span Of his sleep blind to heaven? As of old, Shall we, more wise, in frantic joy behold The bloody fall of nation and of clan, And ever others' woes with rough glee scan, And war’s dark names in Glory's charts inscrolled? We now that in vile joy our egoist fears Behold dispelled, one day shall mourn the more That blood of men erased them‑bitter tears Of desolated woe, as wept of yore (Yet not for the short space of ten long years) The Grecian archer on the Lemnian shore. II Our enemies are fallen; other hands Than ours have struck them, and our joy is great To know that now at length our fears abate From hurt and menace on great Eastern lands. Bardling, scribbler and artist, servile bands, From covert sneer outsigh their trembling hate, Laughing at misery, and woe, and fal]en state, Armies of men whole‑crushed on desolate strands. The fallen lion every ass can kick, That in his life, shamed to unmotioned fright, His every move with eyes askance did trace. I’ll scorn beseems us, men for war and trick, Whose groanings nation poured her fullest might To take the freedom of a former [?] race. 19-6-1905 Poesia Inglesa . Fernando Pessoa. (Organização e tradução de Luísa Freire. Prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes.) Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1995. - 52. 1ª publ. soneto II in Os Dois Exílios - Fernando Pessoa na África do Sul . H. D. Jennings. Porto: Centro de Estudos Pessoanos, 1984. LIBERTY To G.N. Oh, sacred Liberty, dear mother of Fame! What are men here that they should expel thee? What right of theirs, save power, makes others be The pawns, as if unfeeling, in their game? Ireland and the Transvaal, ye are a shame On England and a blot! Oh, shall we see For ever crushed and held who should be free By human creatures without human name? Wonder not then, dear friend, that here where men Are far away I can well rest, and far From where in lawful bodies, Christian‑wise, Beings of earth their fellows fold and pen; Glad that the winds not yet enchained are And billows yet are free to fall and rise. 20-6-1905 Poesia Inglesa . Fernando Pessoa. (Organização e tradução de Luísa Freire. Prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes.) Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1995. - 54. CONVENTION Mother of slaves and fools, Thou who dost hold Within Thine iron chains enslaved mankind, Old in Thy yoke and in their slavery blind, Harden'd to grief and woo, corrupt and cold, But in the craven following, as of old, Of those old ways, unwise, unfirm, unkind, Bound ever in the animal bonds that bind Fish, bird and beast in flock and herd and fold. The light hath fallen of many a cherished name, And many a land of love hath been the nurse, But man's worn heart is evermore the same ­- Unwilling ever to shake off the curse, Once self‑inflicted, and the time‑grown shame That loads the weary, lightless universe. 11-1905 Poesia Inglesa . Fernando Pessoa. (Organização e tradução de Luísa Freire. Prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes.) Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1995. - 56. Destinado ao volume «Death of God». TO THE CRITIC To its own father that child fair doth seem Which unbribed eyes may but indifferent deem; Therefore this book, my child's first son too dear, Do thou inspect with careful search austere. If good, I better promise to indict; If bad, I will not think thou sayest right. 'Tis not my pride, but human nature, friend, Owning no wrong doth covertly amend. 1904 Poesia Inglesa . Fernando Pessoa. (Organização e tradução de Luísa Freire. Prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes.) Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1995. - 32. EPIGRAM Ah, foolish girl with many a fancy fraught, Seek not the dreary path of solemn thought. The man who thinks is he that suffers worst, By Nature blest, by everything accurst. Thought is but madness to one thing confined, A pleasing illness, woeful, undefined; Pleasing as is the fury of the storm That swings above its dangerous force enorm; Pleasing as genius to which one must know Death will not spare the dreadful, sudden blow; Of body, soul and happiness the waster, Thought's a good servant but a tyrannous master. Leave then to madmen thought and pass thy life Away from doubt and ceaseless mental strife; Seek but to please and cherish but to scorn, Love not with faith or thou must learn to mourn; Be thy delight in silks and baubles gay, Treat tears as feints and think life but a play; Think with thy heart, reserve thy mind to scheme; Let thine eyes practise an (unreal) dream: Thy form to attract, thy voice not to repel; The art of slander see than learn full well; Try to please women as thou pleasest men... Thou may'st succeed... and may I live till then. 1904 Poesia Inglesa . Fernando Pessoa. (Organização e tradução de Luísa Freire. Prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes.) Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1995. - 32. EPIGRAM When Cynthia smiled all Nature smiled, the streams Glinted like diamonds in the golden beams; Upon the branches sang the tuneful birds, Amid the lowing of the grazing herds. When Cynthia laughed the world was reft of pain And varied flowers smiled on the enwitched swain; The very storm restrained its fitful might, The seas were ripples and the earth was bright. If Cynthia frowned the skies gave out a groan, The earth a shudder and the wind a moan; Men's heads were drooped, no youthful face was glad, The flowers had closed, the fields were stern and sad. If Cynthia railed all Nature's voice was hoarse, The very orbs withheld their wanted course; The sun was pale, the moon gave out no light, All night was hell, all day was like to night. But, though I lived that day, my blinded eyes Such many miracles beheld not rise. Methought the sun preserved his wonted shine And that men were, as ever, undivine, Methought the storm went on, nor crash'd the less And pain also, men suffering without cease; Nor on the branches sang the birds the more Nor brightened Nature her too bounteous store; Nor wandered yet the world, or hung behind, Nor did the orbs; what wandered was thy mind. 1904 Poesia Inglesa . Fernando Pessoa. (Organização e tradução de Luísa Freire. Prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes.) Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1995. - 34. SUB UMBRA As when the moon which on a wide deep stream Makes every wavelet glint with silver light, By some black cloud, a shadow of the night ls but awhile obscured, yet still gleam The waves in darkness, to no falling beam, And please in shade with the obscure delight Of a profounder motion, stilly dight With softened silver, like a thing of dream; So may for e'er my song its force retain, And though a cloud o'ercast my weary mind Let that but fill the glitter of my strain With staider sweetness, showing to mankind That though beneath a cloud I can sustain My wonted song, to hope and bliss not blind. 8-1904 Poesia Inglesa . Fernando Pessoa. (Organização e tradução de Luísa Freire. Prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes.) Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1995. - 34. WORK Thou wast not put on earth to ask If there be God, or life or death. Seize then thy tools and to thy task And give to toil each panting breath. Thy tools thou hast, nor needst to seek Thy health or faith or useful art, The strength to toil, the power to speak, A mighty mind or kindly heart. 9-1904 Poesia Inglesa . Fernando Pessoa. (Organização e tradução de Luísa Freire. Prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes.) Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1995. - 36. PERSEVERANCE Say not that work is e'er ill‑spent, Say not that effort fails or seems; Say not that he o'er labour bent Is one in the world's many dreams. For not in vain with patient shocks, With timely rush and quick'ning roar, The ocean crashes on the rocks And bounds on to the sounding shore. They check, ‘tis true, his rolling rush, His sturdy beat they seem to scorn, His surging waves with force they crush And turn in spray his billows torn. But days and weeks and months and years He strikes and strikes and strikes amain. And dent on dent in them appears That shows his weary, patient gain. And years may pass or ages go, Those eaten rocks will smaller stand; Still he, with measured aim and slow Shall bend his surging to the land. Sure as the sun, and unperceived As is the growing of a tree, He works and works, nor is deceived By sturdy from that men can see. And when his object full he gains With last and sounding, rending crash, His mighty power he still sustains And onward still his waters dash. 9-1904 Poesia Inglesa . Fernando Pessoa. (Organização e tradução de Luísa Freire. Prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes.) Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1995. - 36. PERFECTION Perfection comes to me in fevered dreams, Beauty divine by earthly senses bound, And lulls mine ear with slow, forgetful sound, Her full heart's voice, burst forth in mindful gleams, Such as I ne'er can grasp. Her soft hair streams On to her lustless breast, wherein confound The real and the ideal interwound, And aught of earthly joy that heaven beseems. Then day invades, and all is gone away; I to myself return, and feel such woe As when a ship‑wrecked sailor waked from sleep From the bright dreams of a sweet village day Lifts up his throbbing head, to hear below The weighty, sunken rumble of the deer. 10-1904 Poesia Inglesa . Fernando Pessoa. (Organização e tradução de Luísa Freire. Prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes.) Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1995. - 38. Destinado ao volume «Agony». 1ª publ. in Fernando Pessoa no seu Tempo . Lisboa: Biblioteca Nacional, 1988. THE INTERNAL NATURE OF THE FACULTIES Every faculty of the mind contains in itself, in a peculiar manner, thought, feeling and volition. Feeling is the desire inherent to the faculty, as, for instance, the desire for sex inherent to amativeness, as the phrenologists call it. Volition is the impulse contained in the faculty whereby we pass to action according to that faculty. Thought is the peculiar consciousness or reflection underlying each feeling and each volition of the faculty. When I feel the desire to love, I do not for instance suppose that I feel the desire to gain applause or approbration. I, and not only I, but also the animal must understand to what the faculty impels. Otherwise all faculties are one. For volition and desire (or feeling) are common to all faculties and manifested in the same way in all; it is then by neither of these that the faculty is determined as such as it is. In other words the faculty to have a name must be capable of understanding itself, so to speak, to determine itself as such a faculty. (Hence instinct is but the possession of the faculty, of the internal thought). ALEXANDER SEARCH 1906 Textos Filosóficos . Vol. I. Fernando Pessoa. (Estabelecidos e prefaciados por António de Pina Coelho.) Lisboa: Ática, 1968 (imp. 1993). - 171. Sad lot of all on earth, Sad and lone! We go to death from birth Cheerless in laugh or groan; And the greatest of us that here must sigh Is but a meteor hurled on high From the unknown to the unknown. 1904 Poesia Inglesa . Fernando Pessoa. (Organização e tradução de Luísa Freire. Prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes.) Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1995. - 40. Destinado ao volume «Nonsense». — O Sr. Caeiro é um materialista? — Não, não sou um artista com doutrina [?] nem coisa nenhuma. Sou um homem que um dia, ao abrir a janela, descobriu esta coisa importantíssima: que a natureza existe. Verifiquei que as árvores, os rios, as pedras são coisas que verdadeiramente existem. Nunca ninguém tinha pensado nisto. Não pretendo ser mais que o maior poeta do mundo. Fiz a maior descoberta que nenhum antes fez e ao pé da qual todas as outras descobertas são entretimentos de crianças estúpidas. Dei pelo universo. Os gregos, com toda a sua nitidez visual, não fizeram tanto. s.d. Poemas Completos de Alberto Caeiro . Fernando Pessoa. (Recolha, transcrição e notas de Teresa Sobral Cunha.) Lisboa: Presença, 1994. - 214. Entrevista a Alberto Caeiro. SONNET OF A SCEPTIC Long ere now Phoebus sunk in western skies Behind his dreamy hills of tinted rose; When I in pain my troubled eyelids close And look upon the world that in me lies. For in the night the silent river flows, In darkness hid the bat unheeded flies: In my soul's night, alas! no calmness lies, With Nature's night too well my horror grows. Darkness I hate, for I am like the night, And yet in me no star, serenely bright, The clouds of mind and soul so purely clears. But as night with its pall of shades of old, Unheard, unseen, l sit in heatless cold, Enwrapped in my doubts and in my fears. 1904 Poesia Inglesa . Fernando Pessoa. (Organização e tradução de Luísa Freire. Prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes.) Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1995. - 40. COMEDY I. Once in a theatre comic ’Tween acts I pondered to see On a column sculptured, wide and comic, The grinning mask of Comedy; And broad and wild in satyr-glee, The grinning face of Comedy. II. «Ah,» said I, «face merry and comic, There is happiness in thee, Few faces like thine, wide-mouth'd and comic, Oh, grinning face of Comedy; Boisterously wrinkled, ugly and free, The grinning mask of Comedy.» III. But as I gazed at the face that smiled, With mine eyes half-dreamfully, «Ah,» said I, «it is forced and wild, Untrue smile of pitiless glee; Forcedly wrinkled, unreal, unfree, Hard-grinning mask of Comedy.» IV. And I trembled — now it no longer smiled, It had forcedly smiled — now not even so. Oh, fearful face, terribly wild, Terribly silent face or woe; Worn, hysterical, mad, unfree, Woe-twisted face of Comedy. 1-1906 Pessoa Inédito . Fernando Pessoa. (Orientação, coordenação e prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes). Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1993. - 70. Destinado ao volume «Delirium». WHEN THE LAMP IS BROKEN... When the lamp is broken and the shaking Light is for ever fled, There is more memory of its breaking Than of the light it shed. This may common be, but 'tis not glad; It means many things and all are sad. 1906 Pessoa Inédito . Fernando Pessoa. (Orientação, coordenação e prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes). Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1993. - 71. Destinado ao volume «Nonsense». 1ª publ. in Fernando Pessoa no Seu Tempo . Lisboa: Biblioteca Nacional, 1988. EPITAPH Here lies who thought himself the best Of poets in the world's extent; In life he had nor joy nor rest. He filled with madness many a song, And at whatever age he died Thus many days he lived too long. He lived in powerless egotism, His soul tumultuous and disordered By thought and feeling's endless schism. In everything he had a be And without courage bore his part In life's interminable woe. He was a slave to grief and fear And incoherent thoughts he had And wishes unto madness near. Those whom he loved, by arts of ill He treated worse than foes; but he His own worst enemy was still. He of himself ever did sing, Incapable of modesty, Lock'd in his wild imagining. Useless was all his toilless trouble Empty of sense his fears and pains And many of them were ignoble. Vile thus and worthless his distress; His words, though bitterer far than bate, His bitter soul could not express. Thus was he miserable and bad, Who yet could sob in tenderness — And none was found to know him mad. Let not a healthy mind pollute His grave, but fitly there will pass The traitor and the prostitute; The drunkard and the wencher there May pass, but quick, lest they should ponder, Perchance, that pleasure is but air. Each weak and execrable mind Which plagued man with its rottenness Its conscious master here will find, Conscious, for in him he could tell Madness and ill were what they were, But neither did he will to quell. Pass by therefore ye who can weep; Let rottenness work in neglect, While the rough winds the dead leaves sweep. His slumbering brother to the sod Not even in imagining Disturb not with the name of God. But let him lie at peace for ever Far from the eyes and mouths of men And from what him from them did sever. He was a thing that God had wrought And to the sin of having lived He joined the crime of having thought. 7-1907 Pessoa Inédito . Fernando Pessoa. (Orientação, coordenação e prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes). Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1993. - 72. Destinado ao volume «Agony». 1ª publ.: «A Poesia Juvenil de Fernando Pessoa». Georg Rudolf Lind. in Estudos sobre Fernando Pessoa . Lisboa: Imprensa Nacional-Casa da Moeda, 1981. TO MY DEAREST FRIEND When I am dead you'll write - I know you will - A thoughtful sonnet on my early death, In which, stating that life but wearieth, You'll notice how I lie pale, cold, and still. This in the quatrains, which likewise you'll fill With some reflections on how soon goes breath And how the cold and heavy earth beneath There is an end to living, good or ill. After this, in the tercets, you will say That death's a mystery, that nought doth stay, Perhaps that immortality is true. Then you will sign and put the date to it. And, having read again the sonnet, you Will be content, seeing it is well writ. 25-2-1909 Poesia Inglesa . Fernando Pessoa. (Organização e tradução de Luísa Freire. Prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes.) Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1995. - 186. Destinado ao volume «Agony» e ao conjunto «Documents of Mental Decadence». 1ª publ. in «Alexandre em ‘Busca’ de Fernando, ou cinco breves notas sobre a poesia de Alexander Search, seguidas de oito poemas seus e respectivas traduções.» Vasco Graça Moura. In Actas do 1º Congresso de Estudos Pessoanos . Porto: Brasília Ed. - Centro de Estudos Pessoanos, 1979. APPROACHING With dragging steps severe, like creeping hate, Through the black silence of my conscious brain I hear madness advance, and feel with pain The ground it treads on writhe and palpitate. How to avoid its coming soon or late? How not to feel the mind's grand vainly strain, But rooted lie awaiting its dread reign, That cometh inopposable as Fate? If only madness came as lightning doth - Suddenly - that were the least greatest ill... But oh! to feel with consciousness' clear sight Reason's day go on to twilight in swift growth, And the twilight of reason, pale and chill, Darken towards impenetrable night. 28-3-1909 Poesia Inglesa . Fernando Pessoa. (Organização e tradução de Luísa Freire. Prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes.) Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1995. - 188. Destinado ao volume «Agony» e ao conjunto «Documents of Mental Decadence». 1ª publ. in «Fernando Pessoa e a Loucura». Georg Rudolf Lind. in Estudos sobre Fernando Pessoa . Lisboa: Imprensa Nacional-Casa da Moeda, 1981. TRIFLES They wear no real greatness who have faith In God: or Matter, in Life's In or Out. Only perpetual doubt is truly great, And the pain of perpetual doubt. 8-5-1909 Poesia Inglesa . Fernando Pessoa. (Organização e tradução de Luísa Freire. Prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes.) Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1995. - 188. TO A MORALIST Thou dost say that too soon we grow old, That all pleasure of earth is but air; Ay, but tell me, oh moralist cold, Besides pleasure what pleasure is there? 1-3-1909 Poesia Inglesa . Fernando Pessoa. (Organização e tradução de Luísa Freire. Prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes.) Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1995. - 188. TO A FRIEND WHO ASKED FOR AN EPITAPH «He was strong and kind to all mankind, Strong all temptations through.ª May this epitaph be written over thee, And, what's more, may it be true. 23-2-1909 Poesia Inglesa . Fernando Pessoa. (Organização e tradução de Luísa Freire. Prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes.) Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1995. - 190. TO A MATERIALIST Thou dost explain by Law the weaving Of all the world, by Chance ruled ever. I never thought Law was so living, Nor did I deem Chance was so clever. 8-5-1909 Poesia Inglesa . Fernando Pessoa. (Organização e tradução de Luísa Freire. Prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes.) Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1995. - 190. THINGS THAT HAPPEN IN SOCIETY Apollo married and Hercules married, and this was in real life. The wife of Hercules loved beautiful rather than strong men, And strong and not beautiful men was the taste of Apollo's wife. s.d. Poesia Inglesa . Fernando Pessoa. (Organização e tradução de Luísa Freire. Prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes.) Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1995. - 190. 1ª publ. in «A Poesia Juvenil de Fernando Pessoa». Georg Rudolf Lind. In Estudos sobre Fernando Pessoa . Lisboa: Imprensa Nacional-Casa da Moeda, 1981. ELEGY On the marriage of my dear friend Mr. Jinks (but which may with equal aptness be applied to the marriage of many other gentlemen) I Ye nymphs whose beauties all your hills Adorn, Embodied graces of the sun‑traced rills, Mourn; For gentle Corydon henceforth, In this hard world where all must pass, Will feel as icy as the North. Alas! II Ah, Corydon! Ah, Corydon! And hast thou left all happiness, Immoraled joy and whiskied liberty? Ah, Corydon! Great is our distress. And art thou no more free? Bars shall be useless now. Alas! in vain The music‑hall shall ring with voices known, In vain the horse shall course the plain And the struck sparrer groan. And dogs and beasts and women, And brandy, gin and wine, And brutish brutes and human ­- Oh, say, shall all these joys no more be thine? lll Ah, frailness of mankind! Thou who didst laugh at woman and didst hold Thyself superior, now, alas! wilt find, Amid thy waning joy and waning gold, Thou learnedst in a sorry school That taught thee to disdain The seeming‑tender being whose dread rule Shall now wreak on thee horrid pain. Too late now wilt thou learn, too late, When thy voice is low and humble thy gait, When thy soul is crushed and thy dress sedate, The greatest of all ills the gods on humans rain. IV Ah, what avails all mourning? Thou art gone From life and youth and gaudy loveliness, From that deep rest that men call drunkenness. Ah, Corydon! Ah, Corydon! Thou the first hope of all our race Hast left the blessed paths of peace and love. Ah, wilt thou be content to rove From shop to shop with her, thy mother‑in‑law, Or tremble full to hear at night, With horror deep and deep affright. The wordy torrent from thy spouse's jaw? V Oh, the troubles to come to thee can ever I dare name? To work in the day, and at night to walk the bedroom's length, On a seeming‑heavy baby to waste thy seeming‑waning strength, And as the husband of thy wife to reach the light of fame. Now my voice is broke with weeping, and mine eyes red, as with sand, And my spirit worn with sighing, and with sighing worn my breast ­ Ah, farewell, that thou art gone now to the dreaded obscure land Where the wicked cease from troubling and the weary never rest. 1904? Poesia Inglesa . Fernando Pessoa. (Organização e tradução de Luísa Freire. Prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes.) Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1995. - 192. N. do A. «C. R. Anon id est Alexander Search» ON BABY'S DEATH With the doleful dead man's bell Ring, oh, ring not Baby's knell! Let her calmly, calmly sleep, But with the flow’rs fresh from the dell Make thou a music wild and deep, Such as men can but know well When their souls have learnt to weep. As if Love's self had gone from earth Oh, sing a music that has birth In the suspension of commotion For thus hath death made our emotion. Sing thou a song more deep and true Than the vague, soft song of ocean The quiet darkness moaning through. Sing into sad tears our distress! Oh, let soft sorrow be thy strain! She's gone beyond our love's caress, Giving to life more loneliness And to mystery more pain. s.d. Poesia Inglesa . Fernando Pessoa. (Organização e tradução de Luísa Freire. Prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes.) Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1995. - 196. Destinado ao volume «Agony». SONG OF THE DREAM‑SPIRITS TO FANNY From the beach and from the billow Rapturously loud, From the zephyr that doth pillow All his softness on a cloud; From the murmur of the river, From the leaves that rustle ever, Joyously we come. We are bright and we are many As the early drops of dew, And we come to little Fanny As the day to you; From the keenness of the mountain, From the sparkle of the fountain, Joyously we come. From the hill and from the valley, From the mountain and the vale; From the evening melancholy Where all hath a tale; From the sweetness of the meadow, From the coolness of the shadow, Joyously we come. ln the sadness of the willow, In the homely nest We have dwelt and had a pillow In the poet's breast; And from all things dimly moving Human souls to bliss and loving Joyously we come. s.d. Poesia Inglesa . Fernando Pessoa. (Organização e tradução de Luísa Freire. Prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes.) Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1995. - 196. Destinado ao volume «Agony» [?]. THE PICTURE In a saloon that is a sleep Mine eyes did a picture meet, And wondrously wise and woefully deep And horribly complete. A profound meaning more than tears Are seen to give, and human fears, And human madness and woe, Come as a scent from that picture weird. The name of the painter is ignored And his purpose none do know. 8-1907 Pessoa Inédito . Fernando Pessoa. (Orientação, coordenação e prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes). Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1993. - 60. Destinado ao volume «Delirium» e ao conjunto «Documents of Mental Decadence». A TEMPLE I have built my temple — wall and face — Outside the idea of space, Complex — built as a full-rigged ship; I made its walls of my fears, Its turrets many of weird thoughts and tears — And that strange temple thus unfurled Like a death's-head flag, that like a whip Stinging around my soul is curled, Is far more real than the world. 8-1907 Pessoa Inédito . Fernando Pessoa. (Orientação, coordenação e prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes). Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1993. - 61. Destinado ao volume «Delirium» e ao conjunto «Documents of Mental Decadence». 1ª publ. Fernando Pessoa no Seu Tempo . Lisboa: Biblioteca Nacional, 1988. MOMENTS IV The boy and the girl did kiss And the world looked on with joy At that pure touch of early bliss, Chaste in its childly stainlessness Given by the girl to the boy. 'T was the first kiss of youth, and used The world is to those words abused ­- «Purity», «love», «free from stain.» Strange doctor who hath e'er confused The medulla and the brain! 28-1-1908 Poesia Inglesa . Fernando Pessoa. (Organização e tradução de Luísa Freire. Prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes.) Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1995. - 172. MOMENTS V The heart's a pump. s.d. Poesia Inglesa . Fernando Pessoa. (Organização e tradução de Luísa Freire. Prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes.) Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1995. - 172. A DAY OF SUN I love the things that children love Yet with a comprehension deep That lifts my pining soul above Those in which life as yet doth sleep. All things that simple are and bright, Unnoticed unto keen‑worn wit, With a child's natural delight That makes me proudly weep at it. I love the sun with personal glee, The air as if I could embrace Its wideness with my soul and be A drunkard by expense of gaze. I love the heavens with a joy That makes me wonder at my soul, It is a pleasure nought can cloy, A thrilling I cannot control. So stretched out here let me lie Before the sun that soaks me up, And let me gloriously die Drinking too deep of living's cup; Be swallowed of the sun and spread Over the infinite expanse, Dissolved, like a drop of dew dead Lost in a super‑normal trance; Lost in impersonal consciousness And mingling in all life become A selfless part of Force and Stress And have a universal home; And in a strange way undefined Lose in the one and living Whole The limit that I call my mind, The bounded thing I call my soul. 17-3-1908 Poesia Inglesa . Fernando Pessoa. (Organização e tradução de Luísa Freire. Prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes.) Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1995. - 172. Destinado ao volume «Delirium». BE IT SO! Be it so; we are sundered for ever­ - I and life's happy and sane. My nature and theirs did us sever; Nought can unite us again. Again? We were never unparted, Differently destined and born­ - They born to be light and stout‑hearted, I to be pained and worn. Be it so; we for ever are sundered! What would the normal with me? My own inner reason hath wondered Trembling at its misery. I give me all over to terror All unto madness and woe; I yield up my thoughts unto error. 'Twas to be so; be it so! Of my thoughts I no longer am master, Ceasing is now all control. My mind doth decay: take your pasture Ravings, ye worms of the soul! 20-4-1908 Poesia Inglesa . Fernando Pessoa. (Organização e tradução de Luísa Freire. Prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes.) Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1995. - 174. Destinado ao conjunto «Documents of Mental Decadence». TOWARDS THE END To‑day I sought to write, and found I had With expectation my worn mind abused, Yet deemed I not so choked and so confused My thoughts already should be. I grow mad. Bare of ideas, lame in my o'er‑used Uselessly tired reason, feeling bad Before the light sun, I stand lone and sad, Friendship and kinship by mankind refused. I labour but to think. I cannot think. My thinking raves or sickens into dream As I of some deep‑witched brew did drink. That did strange horrors in my soul reveal. A storm approaches. All grows dark. I feel My reason leave me like a last sunbeam. 2-7-1908 Poesia Inglesa . Fernando Pessoa. (Organização e tradução de Luísa Freire. Prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes.) Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1995. - 176. Destinado ao volume «Agony». FAMILIAR CONVERSATION Disappointment, my old friend, I had forgot thou wert with me. Forgive me. I did half pretend, Deceiving ill my misery, That thou hadst gone. Forgive me thou. Thou old true friend, thou'rt with me now! Despair, my old companion sure, Thou too - though not forgotten quite - Yet for a moment I had fewer Thoughts of thee - somewhat of respite. Entirely to forget thee were Impossible. Friend, thou art here! And thou, old comrade, Solitude, Bare of affection and of hope, Thou twin with me - I were quite rude Were I to omit by thee to stop And play the game of cares and fears?... Why come ye to shame me, oh tears? 6-8-1908 Poesia Inglesa . Fernando Pessoa. (Organização e tradução de Luísa Freire. Prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes.) Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1995. - 178. Destinado ao volume «Delirium» e ao conjunto «Documents of Mental Decadence». THE ACCURSED POET Here the accursed poet lies, Hid far from the pure blue skies; Mixed with mud filth he lies At the bottom of the stream. He dreamed many a strange dream. He loved mankind but he did nought For mankind's good. Vain was his thought. He would be loved and he was not. The sun in morn or evening glow Can reach him not where deep he lies With mud and filth far from the skies. He ached to feel, he ached to know. He did aspire to what should last Beyond the time that did it show. Full of the giant city's waste The river over him doth flow. Dark over him flows the river. Down to him no light can go. Damn'd be he for ever! 6-8-1908 Poesia Inglesa . Fernando Pessoa. (Organização e tradução de Luísa Freire. Prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes.) Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1995. - 178. Destinado ao volume «Delirium» e ao conjunto «Documents of Mental Decadence». 1ª publ. in «Alexandre em ‘Busca’ de Fernando, ou cinco breves notas sobre a poesia de Alexander Search, seguidas de oito poemas seus e respectivas traduções.» Vasco Graça Moura. In Actas do 1º Congresso de Estudos Pessoanos . Porto: Brasília Ed. - Centro de Estudos Pessoanos, 1979. PITY? NO! Pity? No! I wish not pity. That were but a bitterer scorn, Disdain ruthlessly made witty With a serious look to strain Its awful joke. No; let me mourn In peace. Pity me not again! Pity? No! Let more scorn come, More indifference, more disdain: These are the conforts of my home. To change their look to pity were too far To make me feel a direr pain. Pretend not good: it cannot be. Let evils all seem as they are. To mask them were a mockery Heartless and evilly rare. 6-8-1908 Poesia Inglesa . Fernando Pessoa. (Organização e tradução de Luísa Freire. Prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes.) Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1995. - 180. Destinado ao volume «Delirium» e ao conjunto «Documents of Mental Decadence». 1ª publ. in «Alexandre em ‘Busca’ de Fernando, ou cinco breves notas sobre a poesia de Alexander Search, seguidas de oito poemas seus e respectivas traduções.» Vasco Graça Moura. In Actas do 1º Congresso de Estudos Pessoanos . Porto: Brasília Ed. - Centro de Estudos Pessoanos, 1979. FRATERNITY? I have no reason to love mankind, Nor, alas! mankind one to love me; To all its vileness I am not blind, And all vileness it well can see. If my hatred in words ne'er wreak I know, as none do, ununderstood It is of all men; were I to speak, As unknown of them remain it would. So, all in instinct, a mutual hate, Hid under smiling, we bear each other. All mankind's kindness well I can rate; And I hate each man, and call him brother'. 8-9-1908 Poesia Inglesa . Fernando Pessoa. (Organização e tradução de Luísa Freire. Prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes.) Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1995. - 180. 1ª publ. in «Alexandre em ‘Busca’ de Fernando, ou cinco breves notas sobre a poesia de Alexander Search, seguidas de oito poemas seus e respectivas traduções.» Vasco Graça Moura. In Actas do 1º Congresso de Estudos Pessoanos . Porto: Brasília Ed. - Centro de Estudos Pessoanos, 1979. EPIGRAMS I And so they whisper about us - About me and about you? And so they whisper about us? Let us give them reason to! 11-10-1908 Poesia Inglesa . Fernando Pessoa. (Organização e tradução de Luísa Freire. Prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes.) Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1995. - 182. THE LAST OF THINGS Weep for the last of things, For the farewell that they give As if with a glance alone To the things that remain and live. Weep for the noble minds That have past like froth away; Weep for the bodies fair Now less than dust or day. Weep for the smallest trifles Of our life, that is made of them; Weep for each unaccomplished, Each dream known at last a dream. Weep for nations and kingdoms That are dreams within the past, For creeds and for religions, For idols dim down‑cast. Though their glory were a vile one And a blessing their decay, Yet they are things that have been, Have been and gone away. Weep for all joys departed, For many a departed pain: The heart one day shall desire That they could come back again. Weep for all things that are gone And for those that are not past, For the heart that sees them knows That they also shall not last. To all that passes pertaineth A shred of our sympathy, A tear for all things departed, For departing things a sigh. 27-12-1907 Poesia Inglesa . Fernando Pessoa. (Organização e tradução de Luísa Freire. Prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes.) Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1995. - 138. ENDINGS Farewells, departures, goings - these are most sad: They are endings, dissolutions; they drive sentiment mad. Even the fall of priests, of tyrants, of slaves and of kings Has the bitterness and the sadness of the finishing of things. 27-12-1907 Poesia Inglesa . Fernando Pessoa. (Organização e tradução de Luísa Freire. Prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes.) Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1995. - 140. N. do A.: «Private Poems» WAS... The wave hath burst white upon the beach. Speak no more of it. The leaf hath rotted. No more can it teach But a moral for joy unfit. The day hath ended. Who speaks of its morn But must think of its night? The old corpse is rotting. That it was once born Seems a lie to the sight. The heart hath broken; no more can it throb With deep love or care. Its voice hath vanished; no more can it sob In its deep despair. Thus all things do crumble and all doth pass, But not always forgot: For we feel it deep, and in the heart «was» Meaneth but «is nob». 27-12-1907 Poesia Inglesa . Fernando Pessoa. (Organização e tradução de Luísa Freire. Prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes.) Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1995. - 140. THE MAIDEN A form of Beauty came once to me, A sweeter thing than earth or sea Or anything that is Time's contains Or shows to our heart that has pains. It went and I rose to seek it afar, I walked wide and long in my lofty care, And I asked the passers‑by on the way: «Have ye seen this maiden? oh, say! oh, say!» And they cried all: «No, we have felt the wind Breathe in the blossom things undefined, We have seen the soft leaves tremble and kiss As memories thrilled of a vanished bliss.» I asked a wanderer by the road: «Hast thou seen the maiden I seek abroad'?» «No; I have seen the moonlight», he said, «Rest like a thought on the graves of the dead.» And I asked of others: «Know ye the maid Whose beauty but ignored can fade?» «No», said they; «than skies and flowers We know naught fairer that is ours.» And far I went and I asked of all: None knew her on whom I did call; They had felt the breathing of lone winds low Tremble like lips in loves first glow. They had seen the grass and the trees and flowers Bloom as things whose life is but hours; And they had looked back on their little way And trees and flowers were in decay. Then I asked a madman who had no home, And he said: «Alas for thee who dost roam! Thou must become as I am now For her thou seekest none can know. She lives in a region beyond all love All human sighing far above; In a palace there on a dream‑wrought throne She reigns eternally alone. She maketh the poet's mind to pine, She seeketh him once with a kiss divine, And longing eternal follows that kiss And pain is the blessing of her caress.» 29-12-1907 Poesia Inglesa . Fernando Pessoa. (Organização e tradução de Luísa Freire. Prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes.) Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1995. - 142. 1ª publ. in «Alexander Search entre o Sono e o Sonho». Stephen Reckert. in Yvette K. Centeno e Stephen Reckert. Fernando Pessoa (Tempo, Solidão, Hermetismo) . Lisboa: Moraes Ed., 1978. SUNSET SONG Leaning my chin on my hands, I looked far away to sea Where the dying sunset a sense commands Of half‑mystical majesty. And I felt a strange sorrow, a fear, A desire like a sudden love For something that is not here And that I can never have. 1907 Poesia Inglesa . Fernando Pessoa. (Organização e tradução de Luísa Freire. Prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes.) Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1995. - 144. Destinado ao volume «Agony». 1ª publ. in «Um Pseudónimo de Fernando Pessoa». Maria Staack. in Persona , nº 6. Porto: Centro de Estudos Pessoanos, Out. 1981. THE GAME Come, let us play a game, little boy, To while the world away. What shall be - tell me - our harmless toy? At what shall we play? Shall we play - shall we? - at being great? No, nor at being grand Shall we believe that we are Fate And make up lives out of sand? No, little boy, we will play that we are Happy, and that we are gay; Let us pretend we are dreams, very far From the world in which we play. 2-1-1908 Poesia Inglesa . Fernando Pessoa. (Organização e tradução de Luísa Freire. Prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes.) Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1995. - 144. Destinado ao volume «Agony». PRIEST AND HANGMAN «Burn me that book well, hangman, Burn it to the last leaf, Put at the stake the apostate Whose hand of truth was thief. «Burn his house to the ground, man, Starve his children and wife, His friends disperse, dissever, His followers put to the knife. «His works, his books, his poems To fire's oblivion fling; Let ashes remain of all this. Remains there anything?» «Some that stand by on looking Have tears within their eyes.» «In the stake shall be their ending And vain and lone their cries.» «All's done, my lord.» - «Remaineth There aught that was, of theirs?» «Ashes» - «Throw them to the winds then; Still aught of them appears?» My lord, there still persisteth The name they had of good.» Trouble not; t'will be forgotten As their ashes and their blood.» «Nothing remaineth. - «My lord, yet Aught can I not dispel: Our name that will be ever A curse and a living hell.» We also shall be forgotten As these shall cease to be. What will remain then? -  My lord, still The name of Tyranny.» «That also will remain not.» «But the Cause of what we do, Of this bad world will. «What thou meanest My mind cannot construe.» My lord, I mean 'tis useless That all things be crushed and trod. There will then stand out to be hated The accursed name of God» 2-1-1908 Poesia Inglesa . Fernando Pessoa. (Organização e tradução de Luísa Freire. Prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes.) Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1995. - 146. Destinado ao volume «Death of God». THE LIP One day in half‑slumbrous raving Where I saw strange fancies skip, I saw in a dream, by no light's gleam, A man with only one lip - Absolutely, absolutely, absolutely, Absolutely with only one lip. I remember well that he had no face Nor a nose with a usual tip; He had nor eyes, nor cheks, nor hair But only, only one lip - Only one, only one, only one, Only one, one, one lip. Can ye think of it without terror? No other lip did slip Into the vision, nor was it a lack: There was only, only one lip. Could you see him as I you would grow mad. That man with only one lip. 2-1-1908 Poesia Inglesa . Fernando Pessoa. (Organização e tradução de Luísa Freire. Prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes.) Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1995. - 148. 1ª publ. in Fernando Pessoa: o Amor, a Morte, a Iniciação . Yvette K. Centeno. Lisboa: Regra do Jogo, 1985. THE GIANT'S REPLY I met a giant upon my way; He looked more wise than Nature. «Tell me some truth», thus my tongue did betray My soul so that more than creature. - «There is but one's, in an old voice strange He cried: «things are more, I say, Than Time in which they seem to change And than Space that seems more than they». 7-1-1908 Poesia Inglesa . Fernando Pessoa. (Organização e tradução de Luísa Freire. Prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes.) Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1995. - 150. 1ª publ. in «O Espólio e a Biblioteca de Fernando Pessoa: uma Solução para alguns Enigmas». Yvette K. Centeno. in Yvette K. Centeno e Stephen Reckert. Fernando Pessoa (Tempo, Solidão, Hermetismo) . Lisboa: Moraes Ed., 1978. MY LIFE I Duty calls on me; I must fight against That which 'tis duty unto all to fight. Therefore, oh, illness of my will that stain'st My mind - oh, leave me free to seek the right! Take me from the vile sleep of purpose cold, Give me an impulse to do good, to make A struggle for the new against the old Ere time my useless life away may take. Keen is my feeling of the suffering Of men and nations, keen into despair; But not a will to speak it doth it bring, Moveless I rest, not like a thing too fair, But like a stagnant water full of filth, A bog of will, inactive and alone, Unopen unto Learning's fresh and tilth And locked from doing good as men have done. Pain ever, pain for ever! pain, oh pain! Pain filling all my life like time or change. Woe that goes from an inner waking strain Unto the sleepiness of fears most strange. Despair and horror, madness lone that feels Its own too bitter taste until it quails, The horror of a mind that fails and reels And knows full well how far it reels and fails. I sorrow for the past and at the future, On that which never was I weep and pine, Upon the things that never were in Nature, On those that are and never shall be mine. The sadness of the pleasure that has been, The sorrow of the pain that once we had, The ache of that which in dim visions seen Leaves but an echo to make itself sad. The knowledge that a dream is nothing more, The science that our life is less than this: It passes as it, and the bliss it wore Was at its best the shadow of a bliss. I ponder on the fates of men and things, Thereat my soul grows dark and feeble grows, To find Thought's body weighing on the wings Which Fancy opens over fields and snows. I ponder upon evil and on good And both in life irrational I see, One because it exists not, yet it should, The other since it is and should not be. Nothing is clear unto me; all is dark, All is confusion to my Thought's o'er‑much; Alas for him who thinks in life to work Having cast far away Convention's crutch. He finds that Custom, the least thing of all, Is king and queen and law and creed and faith, That Custom goes not further than our pall, That Custom is with us past our own death. I mourn that there are thrones, prisons and tumbs, And yet to see all ill I am half glad: That there are deaths, decays and rots and dooms, A gladness whose eyes sparkle, because mad. I weep all times the limits close that must Deep souls ununderstood in living pen, But weeping deeply wake to the disgust That I weep for myself in other men. My tears are for myself; so that they teach To know men's ineradicable woe, What matter what high point of pain they reach? Haply their birth one day they 'll cease to know. And that I shall forget this pain of mine Forget myself - ah, would that it could be! Forgotten like the drunkard in his wine Or like the pauper in his misery. 'Twere madness, but sweet madness, better than The waking, fully living consciousness That unto a full unity doth span The many woes and throes of my distress. 'Twere madness but 'twere better than to know That evil is the source of life and thought, For to feel madness is the greatest woe That upon human consciousness is wrought. To feel excluded, miserable, lone, A leper deep at heart, having for sore His being, is a misery past moan 'Tis better all to have and to ignore. 'Tis better? - nay, who knows? the mystery Of consciousness and knowledge who can find? In madness and in thought what things may be? How far is horror deep within the mind? II This is my life; what will the future be? With horror I grow sick past sighs and tears, To think how life is torture unto me, How Thought is father of strange cares and fears. Yesterday one spoke to me of my youth. Youth? Life? Twelve years I had of happiness; The seven since then have been without ruth - Twelve years of sleep and seven of distress. Time, I grow sick of thee! Sounds, motions, things, I feel a tiredness before your eyes... Give me, oh Dream of mine! thy purest wings That I may take from solitude my cries, That I may seek the Heaven of this life - Death, mother of hall things that seem to be. Die thus the hand that could not serve for strife, The brain that strained and toiled with misery! III Life - what is Life? Death - what is Death? My brain Feels as I think on this, as one that reads Far into dusk lifts up his eyes with pain, Aching and dim; and my heart slowly bleeds. IV To work? I cannot. To be gay? I've lost Long, long ago all laughter save a base Mirth where Despair with Apathy incrust, That has the scent of rots and of decays. To do good? all desire tends unto it But al1 my will is feeble before all: I am become a bult for my Thought's wit Which is no wit but Consciousness all gall. And what avails it e'er to toil or trouble, To make my torture of my life and thought? Is not all life the slander‑fair soap‑bubble That by a child in empty mind is wrought? And what avails all verse, all art and song, All that doth make a body for itself? My heart is keen to feel al1 human wrong, I careless, as one born to ease and pelf. And what avails it ever to grow pale Over the mute and endless lore of old Until the wearied senses strain and fail And the worn heart is passionless and cold? Avails it anything? It avails not. Let me sleep then: give me a grave for bed In the earth's heart where I not life nor thought But rottenness and peace my have instead. 9-1-1908 Poesia Inglesa . Fernando Pessoa. (Organização e tradução de Luísa Freire. Prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes.) Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1995. - 150. THE APOSTLE The preacher said: «My task, it is to take To men the mystic balsam of a creed, And in their hearts lust-taken to awake A fervour above life and above need. My work: is to outcast the every greed For beauty, and the chains of love to break, And the whole field of youth and joy to rake Clear for the sowing of my holy seed. I go to preach a doctrine sweet and sad Of sacrifice and of benevolence: I turn my back on life, on earthly bliss. But e'er I go ‑ oh, God, can I be mad? - Would I could take to that cold life intense The soul-perturbing memory of a kiss!» 19-6-1907 Poesia Inglesa . Fernando Pessoa. (Organização e tradução de Luísa Freire. Prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes.) Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1995. - 98. Destinado ao volume «Sonnets in Many Moods». JUSTICE There was a land, which I suppose, Where everyone had a crooked nose; And the crooked nose that everyone had In no manner did make him sad. But in that land a man was born Whose nose more straight and clean was worn; And the men of that land with a public hate Killed the man whose nose was straight. 28-7-1907 Poesia Inglesa . Fernando Pessoa. (Organização e tradução de Luísa Freire. Prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes.) Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1995. - 98. Destinado ao volume «Death of God». 1ª publ. in «A Poesia Juvenil de Fernando Pessoa». Georg Rudolf Lind. in Estudos sobre Fernando Pessoa . Lisboa: Imprensa Nacional-Casa da Moeda, 1981. THE CIRCLE I traced a circle on the ground, It was a mystic figure strange Wherein I thought there would abound Mute symbols adequate of change, And complex formulas of Law, Which is the jaws of Change's maw. My simpler thoughts in vain had stemmed The current of this madness free, But that my thinking is condemned To symbol and analogy: I deemed a circle might condense With calm all mystery's violence. And so in cabalistic mood A circle traced I curious there; Imperfect the made circle stood Thought formed with minutest care. From magic's failure deeply I A lesson took to make me sigh. 30-7-1907 Poesia Inglesa . Fernando Pessoa. (Organização e tradução de Luísa Freire. Prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes.) Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1995. - 100. 1ª publ. in «O Espólio e a Biblioteca de Fernando Pessoa: uma solução para alguns enigmas». Yvette. K. Centeno. in Yvette. K. Centeno e Stephen Reckert. Fernando Pessoa (Tempo. Solidão. Hermetismo) . Lisboa: Moraes, 1978. THE WORLD The world, as far's I understand, Which is no further than the blind Of colour and of shade can find In that obscurity of theirs, This world sunlit and grand, Of which we are the heirs With a proud unconsciousness, Is worth as much as all our rhymes, As all our things, its gilded slimes - Nothing, and that's the most I'll say Ere on he bed of nothingness I turn myself the other way. 7-1907 Poesia Inglesa . Fernando Pessoa. (Organização e tradução de Luísa Freire. Prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes.) Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1995. - 104. Destinado ao volume «Delirium». MEN OF SCIENCE To toil through time and hate and to consume Far more than life in Error's hard defeat, Seeking e'er for the true, for the complete, Careless of faith and misery and doom Is there a nobler task, while life doth fleet, Than this, to strive to make light amid gloom, And with hands bleeding to part and make room In life for weaker and more unsure feet? The void o'th' world must with an arch be spanned, The ways of Nature must be read aright That there may be a wise and friendly hand To make this dark world better and more bright. Oh, with what joy and love I understand These master-souls that ache for truth and light. 7-1907 Poesia Inglesa . Fernando Pessoa. (Organização e tradução de Luísa Freire. Prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes.) Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1995. - 104. Destinado ao volume «Death of God». 1ª publ. in «Introduction». F. E. G. Quintanilha. in Sixty Poems . Fernando Pessoa. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1971. THE STORY OF SOLOMON WASTE This is all the story of Solomon Waste. Always hurrying yet never in haste, He fussed and worked and toiled all frothing And at the end of all did nothing. This is all the story of Solomon Waste. He lived in wishing and in striving, And nothing came of all his living; He worked and toiled in rain and sweat, And nothing came out of all that. This is all the story of Solomon Waste. He thought much and had no conviction, His feeling was at best affliction Though tender he and hating evil He might have gained the name of devil. His every wish and resolution Even in his mind was but confusion. This is all the story of Solomon Waste. And things begun and never ended, And much undone and much intended, And all things wrong yet never mended: This is all the story of Solomon Waste. Each day new projects did betray, Yet each day was like every day. He was born and died and between these He worried himself himself to tease. He bustled, worried, moved and cried But in his life no more's descried Than two clear facts: he lived and died. This is all the story of Solomon Waste. 11-8-1907 Poesia Inglesa . Fernando Pessoa. (Organização e tradução de Luísa Freire. Prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes.) Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1995. - 106. Destinado ao volume «Delirium». 1ª publ. in «A Poesia Juvenil de Fernando Pessoa». Georg Rudolf Lind. in Humboldt , 8, nº 17. Hamburg: 1968. FAREWELL Farewell, farewell for ever, I cannot more remain; Far wider things our hearts do sever Than continent or main - Pride and distaste and inaptness To feel each other's joy, distress. Farewell, farewell for ever; Be it not said by thee My heart was weaker, thy heart braver In mutual misery But parted were we, be it said, As are the living from the dead. Farewell, farewell for ever, Since love left not behind Nor even friendship nor endeavour Nor sorrow mad or kind. 'Tis fit indeed those souls be parted That cannot e'er be broken-hearted. Farewell, farewell for ever; 'Tis time this thing were done, When love is cold which was a fever And vulgar as a stone, When life from woe to woe doth flee And change itself is misery. 23-8-1907 Poesia Inglesa . Fernando Pessoa. (Organização e tradução de Luísa Freire. Prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes.) Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1995. - 108. REQUIESCAT For thee, the veil of the temple is rent And the holy of holies laid bare... Hath mystery thy being spent With tragic muteness eloquent; Or with the horror living there Is thy dead spirit blent? Whate'er contains now thy vision's scope, Howe'er it be, thou canst not be mad At shadows dread for which we grope, And at thy heart together did fade The pleasure that doth make us sad And the pain that makes us hope. 26-8-1907 Poesia Inglesa . Fernando Pessoa. (Organização e tradução de Luísa Freire. Prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes.) Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1995. - 108. THE CURTAIN A curtain hides the mystery That in the world is known to be, Mute-horrid as impending thunder, From eyes unsensual that would see Behind it things for more than wonder - A curtain past whose living folds His court of shadows Horror holds. And he that curtain who shall part But in his mind, will feel the heart Grow weak before the irony That Nothingness pains more the heart Than things that are or seem to be, That Nothingness can give a fear, A sorrow nothing can give here. 26-8-1907 Poesia Inglesa . Fernando Pessoa. (Organização e tradução de Luísa Freire. Prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes.) Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1995. - 110. Destinado ao volume «Delirium» e ao conjunto «Documents of Mental Decadence». THE SEPULCHRE Mystery, mystery is here That brings a joy with a fear. Oh, that Death should greater be Than Time and Space and all we see, That Change should deeper be than thought And Time, like a portentous tomb, Should feel corruption in its womb Yet itself crumble like its rot! For e'en the sepulchre's cold stones Shall have a death like the dead bones They shut in. (What coffer can lock Corruption out? or rottenness What wit with cell and bolt can mock?) Ay, even marble shall like bodies die A death, shall have an end. The passer-by Shall tread the dust of the stone That on the grave did lie, In dust now like each bone. For to Corruption all must go, The difference in this alone: That some things rot quick and some slow. Ay, the hard stone will wear away Making the day when it was rock Unreal as a distant day. Only a Shadow none do know, By the lock'd door of Time and Space, With obscure and peculiar grace Keeps watch never to go. 18-9-1907 Poesia Inglesa . Fernando Pessoa. (Organização e tradução de Luísa Freire. Prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes.) Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1995. - 112. Destinado ao volume «Delirium».