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Index
Cover Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Contents
About the Selection and Sources
Acknowledgments
Introduction: The Drama and Dream of Fernando Pessoa
ALBERTO CAEIRO: The Unwitting Master
from THE KEEPER OF SHEEP
1 I’ve never kept sheep
2 My gaze is clear like a sunflower
5 To not think of anything is metaphysics enough
9 I’m a keeper of sheep
10 Hello, keeper of sheep
18 I’d rather be the dust of the road
20 The Tagus is more beautiful than the river that flows through my village
23 My gaze, blue like the sky
24 What we see of things are the things
32 Yesterday afternoon a man from the cities
37 Like a large blot of smudged fire
38 Blessed be the same sun of other lands
39 The mystery of things—where is it?
40 I see a butterfly go by
42 The coach came down the road, and went on
47 On an incredibly clear day
from THE SHEPHERD IN LOVE
Before I had you
Perhaps those who are good at seeing are poor at feeling
The shepherd in love lost his staff
from UNCOLLECTED POEMS
To see the fields and the river
When Spring returns
If I die young
It is night. It’s very dark. In a house far away
On this whitely cloudy day I get so sad it almost scares me
The child who thinks about fairies and believes in them
Slowly the field unrolls and shines golden
Yesterday the preacher of truths (his truths)
They spoke to me of people, and of humanity
I lie down in the grass
Dirty unknown child playing outside my door
You who are a mystic see a meaning in all things
Ah! They want a light that’s better than the sun’s
This morning I went out very early
I can also make conjectures
This may be the last day of my life
RICARDO REIS: The Sad Epicurean
from ODES
Others narrate with lyres or harps
The gods grant nothing more than life
Don’t clap your hands before beauty
Ah, you believers in Christs and Marys
On this day when the green fields
Here, with no other Apollo than Apollo
Above the truth reign the gods
Let the gods
Lips red from wine
I prefer roses, my love, to the homeland
Follow your destiny
I was never one who in love or in friendship
O morning that breaks without looking at me
Obey the law, whether it’s wrong or you are
I want my verses to be like jewels
Day after day life’s the same life
Who delights in the mind can delight in no destiny
As if each kiss
Your dead gods tell me nothing I need
Fate frightens me, Lydia. Nothing is certain
I devote my higher mind to the ardent
My eyes see the fields, the fields
Each man is a world, and as each fountain
Not only wine but its oblivion I pour
How great a sadness and bitterness
Solemnly over the fertile land
As long as I feel the full breeze in my hair
The one I loved is not here, you say
What we feel, not what is felt
I don’t know if the love you give is love you have
Want little: you’ll have everything
I was left in the world, all alone
I tell with severity. I think what I feel
I placidly wait for what I don’t know
Countless lives inhabit us
ÁLVARO DE CAMPOS: The Jaded Sensationist
I study myself but can’t perceive
Listen, Daisy. When I die, although
Ah, the first minutes in cafés of new cities
Time’s Passage
It was on one of my voyages
Ah, when we set out to sea
But it’s not just the cadaver
I leaned back in the deck chair and closed my eyes
The Tobacco Shop
Oporto-Style Tripe
A Note in the Margin
Deferral
Sometimes I meditate
Ah, the freshness in the face of leaving a task undone
At long last. . ., no doubt about it . . .
Pop
I walk in the night of the suburban street
Yes, I know it’s all quite natural
Streetcar Stop
Birthday
No! All I want is freedom
I’d like to be able to like liking
Reality
I’m beginning to know myself. I don’t exist
Pack your bags for Nowhere at All
I got off the train
This old anguish
Impassively
On the eve of never departing
Symbols? I’m sick of symbols
The ancients invoked the Muses
I don’t know if the stars rule the world
I’ve been thinking about nothing at all
All love letters are
FERNANDO PESSOA-HIMSELF: The Mask Behind the Man
from SONGBOOK
Ocean (Morning)
God
From Slanting Rain
The wind is blowing too hard
The Mummy
The gods are happy
In the light-footed march of heavy time
Christmas
By the moonlight, in the distance
Waterfront
Some Music
I feel sorry for the stars
I seem to be growing calm
Sleep
I contemplate the silent pond
Like a uselessly full glass
The sun shining over the field
I don’t know how many souls I have
The soul with boundaries
I’m sorry I don’t respond
Autopsychography
I don’t know how to be truly sad
The clouds are dark
Like an astonishing remnant
If I think for more than a moment
From the mountain comes a song
This species of madness
The wind in the darkness howls
I have ideas and reasons
With a smile and without haste
Outside where the trees
I hear in the night across the street
Almost anonymous you smile
This
The day is quiet, quiet is the wind
The sun rests unmoving
The washwoman beats the laundry
To travel! To change countries
This great wavering between
I have in me like a haze
Dreams, systems, myths, ideals
I divide what I know
The child that laughs in the street
from MESSAGE
Prince Henry the Navigator
The Stone Pillar
The Sea Monster
Epitaph of Bartolomeu Dias
Ferdinand Magellan
Portuguese Sea
Prayer
Notes to the Introduction and the Poems
Bibliography
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