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Fernando Pessoa

18 - SUMMER MOMENTS

SUMMER MOMENTS

 

I

 

The sky is blue,

        The glad grass green.

My sad eyes woo

        The alien scene.

 

Oh, could my heart

        Partake of it

And feel no smart

        Feeling life flit!

 

I have no home,

        No hours save pain.

Sweet breezes, come

        Into my brain!

 

Great river so

        Quiet and true,

Teach me to go

        Through life like you!

 

I have no rest.

        My flowers have faded.

What was that quest

        My will evaded?

 

Even what I wish

       I care not for.

My heart is rich

        And my love poor.

 

Oh, golden day,

        Come into me

And my soul ray

        With sunlit glee!

 

Let me be merely

        A window‑pane

You pass through, clearly

        A warmed no‑pain.

 

I faint and shiver

        Hearing life come.

O passing river,

        Where is my home?

 

O happy hours

        That the fields wear,

Fresh summer showers!

        O my despair!

 

O glad horizons!

        O happy hills!

What pain imprisons

        My struggling wills?

 

What is between

        Myself and me?

What should have been

        Lest this should be?

 

My life no more

        Ever to be

Than a lone shore

        Struck by the sea!

 

What fate, what power

        Of dark despair

Makes each fair hour

        Taste as not fair?

 

Oh, for some rest!

        Give me a home,

A hope, a nest

        Not to stray from!

 

Somewhere in life

        Sure there must be

Something not strife

        Waiting for me.

 

Lead me to it,

        O happy day!

Make my heart fit

        Thy going away!

 

Wake me the hopes

        At least, though false,

My spirit gropes

        Round prison‑walls.

 

Low voice of streams,

        Sweet summer's wife -

Why made I dreams

        My only life?

 

II

 

The sun shines.

        Birds pass.

The path lines

        The grass.

 

I go through

        The meads,

Far from woe

        And deeds.

 

There is no hope

        Now here,

Nothing to grope

        For or fear.

 

Nothing: the sky

        And the green earth;

A vague wonder why

        There was birth.

 

This and no more,

        This and my soul

And the sky o'er

        This nothing's all.

 

I am again

        The child I was,

Having no pain

        More than the grass.

 

I live a life

        Freed from the morrow

And forget strife

        And sorrow.

 

What were the shapes

        Of fear and hope?

Vines show their grapes

        Down the hill‑slope.

 

This real hour

        Shall not survive,

Yet shall't endure

        Because I live.

 

So let the glades

        And the sky's blue

In vague soul‑shades

        My heart come through,

 

Till I become

        An outward thing,

Having no home;

        A breath, a wing,

 

A portionless

        Part of the hour,

Outside the stress

        Of being more.

 

Low voices coming

        Out of the day,

Chirping and humming

        Near and away,

 

Make me a part

        Of what you are,

Spill out my heart,

        Shake it afar!

 

Let my soul be

        A dust thrown up

To the winds' glee,

        In the sea's cup!

 

There lost and mixed,

        There selfless made,

No longer fixed

        And casting shade.

 

This hour must pass

        Like all I know;

Yet, while it was,

        Fresh was my brow,

 

My eyelids drooped

        With final ease,

I was not cooped

        In thought's disease.

 

So let me rest

        This while and deem

That life the best

        That's most like dream.

 

This hot hour is

        Of that vague size,

For I see this

        Through no clear eyes,

 

But in a dim

        Abandonment

Live in the rim

        Of my thought's bent,

 

And this thought now's

        A blade of grass

That not even knows

        Hours pass.

 

III

 

A gentle wind hath risen

        Out of the heated day.

May my soul be forgiven

        Its dreams! O let me pray

 

That this freshening hour

        May cling to memory

And have years after power

        To live again in me!

 

'Tis very little, I know,

        But it is happiness,

And the hours are but few

        That we can really bless.

 

They are hours like this, freed

        From belonging to thought,

When we have nought to heed

        Save a breeze that is nought.

 

Let me therefore breathe in

        Into my memory

This hour, and may it begin

        Again whenever I see

 

My heart grow heavy and hot,

        My thoughts grow close and late

O soft breeze, fan my thought!

        O calmness, brush my fate!

19-9-1915

«The Mad Fiddler». in Poesia Inglesa. Fernando Pessoa. (Organização e tradução de Luísa Freire. Prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes.) Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1995.

 - 354.

1ª publ. in O Louco Rabequista. Fernando Pessoa. (Organização e tradução de José Blanc de Portugal.) Lisboa: Presença, 1988.