Fernando Pessoa
Tell me again the music of that tale
Tell me again the music of that tale
Thy nurse wit sang so oft by my soul's bed,
Whose words and persons from my memory fade,
But in the melody remembered.
Thou mightst shift all the pawns of that told game
And, so the music made it far off be,
I shall still hear the tale as if the same,
Far bark on seas of the same melody.
What fairy castles and closed beauties lie
On moonlight of not‑life away from where
Loss is, truth kills, what charms must be put by,
And but the still‑to‑be keeps fresh & fair.
What matter the song, so by it the soul weeps
Lost kinship with its antenatal sleeps?
6-11-1920
Poesia Inglesa. Fernando Pessoa. (Organização e tradução de Luísa Freire. Prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes.) Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1995.
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