THE STORY OF SALOMON WASTE
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.
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.