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Fernando Pessoa is Portugal's most important contemporary poet. He wrote under several identities, which he called heteronyms: Albet Caeiro, Alvaro de Campos, Ricardo Reis, and Bernardo Soares. He wrote fine poetry under his own name as well, and each of his "voices" is completely different in subject, temperament, and style. This volume brings back into print the comprehensive collection of his work published by Ecco Press in 1986.
200 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 1930
Great Mysteries Inhabit
Great mysteries inhabit
The threshold of my being,
On its sill hop and sit
Great sparrows that watch, avid,
My late crossing to seeing.
There are birds full of abyss,
Like the ones in dream. Dare
I sound and think what is?
My soul's cataclysm, this
Threshold - my soul now there.
Then I wake from the dream mystery
And rejoice in the light - till it grows
Into day and for me sad horror
Seeing the threshold is terror
And each step is a cross.
(2.10.33)
There Are Diseases
There are diseases worse, yes, than diseases,
Aches that don't ache even in one's soul
And yet, that are more aching than the others.
There are dreamed anguishes that are more real
Than the ones life brings us, there are sensations
Felt only by imagining
Which are more ours than our own life is.
There's so often a thing which, not existing,
Does exist lingeringly
And lingeringly is ours and us...
Above the cloudy green of the broad river
The white circumflexes of the gulls...
Above the soul the useless fluttering -
What never was, nor could be, and is everything.
Give me some more wine, because life is nothing.
(19.11.35)