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A Little Larger Than the Entire Universe

Page 10

by Fernando Pessoa


  Memory not distinguishing

  What I’ve seen from what I’ve been.

  7 JUNE 1928

  Let my fate deny me everything except

  To see it, for I, an unstrict

  Stoic, wish to delight in every letter

  Of the sentence engraved by Destiny.

  21 NOVEMBER 1928

  When, Lydia, our autumn arrives

  With the winter it harbors, let’s reserve

  A thought, not for the future spring,

  Which belongs to others,

  Nor for the summer, whose deceased we are,

  But for what remains of what is passing:

  The present yellow that the leaves live

  And that makes them different.

  13 JUNE 1930

  Hesitant, as if forgotten by Aeolus,

  The morning breeze caresses the field,

  And the sun begins to glimmer.

  Let us, Lydia, not wish in this hour

  For more sun than this or for a stronger breeze

  Than the one that is small and exists.

  13 JUNE 1930

  Weak in vice, weak in virtue,

  Not even in fury does weak humanity

  Know more than the norm.

  Equals, but different, we govern ourselves

  By our own norm, which, though harsh,

  Will be freedom.

  To be free is to be your own imposed norm,

  Like others except in the broad and harsh

  Control and use of yourself.

  9 JULY 1930

  Not just those who envy and hate us

  Limit and oppress us; those who love us

  Limit us no less.

  May the Gods grant me, stripped of all

  Affections, the cold freedom of the heights

  Of nothingness. Wanting little,

  A man has everything. Wanting nothing,

  He’s free. Not having and not desiring,

  He’s equal, though man, to the Gods.

  1 NOVEMBER 1930

  Rule or keep quiet. Don’t squander yourself,

  Giving what you don’t have.

  What good is the Caesar you might have been?

  Enjoy being the little you are.

  The hovel you’re given is a better shelter

  Than the palace you’re owed.

  27 SEPTEMBER 1931

  If each thing has its corresponding god,

  Why shouldn’t I have a god as well?

  Why shouldn’t it be me?

  It’s in me that this god moves, for I feel.

  I clearly see the outside world—

  Things and men with no soul.

  DECEMBER 1931

  No one loves anyone else; he loves

  What he finds of himself in the other.

  Don’t fret if others don’t love you. They feel

  Who you are, and you’re a stranger.

  Be who you are, even if never loved.

  Secure in yourself, you will suffer

  Few sorrows.

  10 AUGUST 1932

  Nothing of nothing remains. And we are nothing.

  In the sun and air we put off briefly

  The unbreathable darkness of damp earth

  Whose weight we’ll have to bear—

  Postponed corpses that procreate.

  Laws passed, statues seen, odes finished—

  They all have their grave. If we, heaps of flesh

  Quickened by the blood of an inner sun,

  Must one day set, why not they?

  We’re tales telling tales, nothing . . .

  28 SEPTEMBER 1932

  To be great, be whole: don’t exaggerate

  Or leave out any part of you.

  Be complete in each thing. Put all you are

  Into the least of your acts.

  So too in each lake, with its lofty life,

  The whole moon shines.

  14 FEBRUARY 1933

  Calm because I’m unknown,

  And myself because I’m calm,

  I want to fill my days

  With wanting nothing from them.

  For those whom wealth touches,

  Gold irritates the skin.

  For those on whom fame blows,

  Life fogs over.

  On those for whom happiness

  Is their sun, night will fall.

  But those who hope for nothing

  Are glad for whatever comes.

  2 MARCH 1933

  Each day you didn’t enjoy wasn’t yours:

  You just got through it. Whatever you live

  Without enjoying, you don’t live.

  You don’t have to love or drink or smile.

  The sun’s reflection in a puddle of water

  Is enough, if it pleases you.

  Happy those who, placing their delight

  In slight things, are never deprived

  Of each day’s natural fortune!

  14 MARCH 1933

  Since we do nothing in this confused world

  That lasts or that, lasting, is of any worth,

  And even what’s useful for us we lose

  So soon, with our own lives,

  Let us prefer the pleasure of the moment

  To an absurd concern with the future,

  Whose only certainty is the harm we suffer now

  To pay for its prosperity.

  Tomorrow doesn’t exist. This moment

  Alone is mine, and I am only who

  Exists in this instant, which might be the last

  Of the self I pretend to be.

  16 MARCH 1933

  You’re alone. No one knows it. Hush and feign.

  But feign without feigning.

  Hope for nothing that’s not already in you.

  Each man in himself is everything.

  You have sun if there’s sun, trees if you seek them,

  Fortune if fortune is yours.

  6 APRIL 1933

  I love what I see because one day

  I’ll stop seeing it. I also

  Love it because it is.

  In this calm moment when I feel myself

  By loving more than by being,

  I love all existence and myself.

  No better thing could the primitive gods

  Give me, were they to return—

  They, who also know nothing.

  11 OCTOBER 1934

  All I ask the gods to grant me is that

  I ask them for nothing. Good luck is a yoke

  And to be happy oppresses,

  For it’s an emotional state.

  I want to raise my not easy nor uneasy,

  Purely calm being above the plane

  Where men rejoice or grieve.

  My hand that destroys

  The heap of ants

  Must seem to them of divine origin,

  But I don’t consider myself divine.

  Likewise the gods

  Perhaps do not see

  Themselves as gods, being gods in our eyes

  Only because they’re greater than us.

  Whatever the case,

  Let’s not commit

  Completely to a faith, perhaps unfounded,

  In those we believe to be gods.

  Four times in the false year the false season

  Changed, in the immutable course

  Of time’s progression.

  Dryness follows greenness, and greenness dryness,

  And no one knows which is first, which

  Is last, and they end.

  Of the gods I ask only to be ignored.

  Without good or bad luck, I’ll be free,

  Like the wind that’s the life

  Of the air, which is nothing.

  Hatred and love both seek us out;

  Both oppress us, each in its own way.

  Those to whom the gods

  Grant nothing are free.

  ÁLVARO DE CAMPOS

  I don’t believe in anything but the existence of my sensat
ions; I have no other certainty, not even of the outer universe conveyed to me by those sensations. I don’t see the outer universe, I don’t hear the outer universe, I don’t touch the outer universe. I see my visual impressions; I hear my auditory impressions; I touch my tactile impressions. It’s not with the eyes but with the soul that I see; it’s not with the ears but with the soul that I hear; it’s not with the skin but with the soul that I touch.

  And if someone should ask me what the soul is, I’ll answer that it’s me.

  (FROM ÁLVARO DE CAMPOS’S NOTES FOR THE MEMORY OF MY MASTER CAEIRO)

  OPIARY

  It’s before I take opium that my soul is sick.

  To feel life is to wilt like a convalescent,

  And so I seek in opium’s consolation

  An East to the east of the East.

  This life on board is sure to kill me.

  Fever rages in my head day and night.

  And although I search until I’m ill,

  I can’t find the spring to set me right.

  In paradox and astral incompetence,

  In golden folds I live my days,

  A wave in which dignity’s a descent

  And pleasures are ganglia of my malaise.

  It’s through a clockwork of disasters,

  A mechanism of pseudo-flywheels,

  That I walk among visions of gallows

  In a garden of stemless, floating flowers.

  I stagger through the handiwork

  Of an inner life of lace and lacquer.

  It’s as though at home I had the knife

  That beheaded St. John the Baptist.

  I’m atoning for a crime in a suitcase

  That my grandfather committed for fun.

  My nerves hang from the gibbet by the dozen,

  And I’ve fallen into the pit of opium.

  With the soporific nudge of morphine

  I lose myself in throbbing transparencies,

  And on a diamond-studded night the moon

  Rises as if it were my Destiny.

  Always a bad student, now

  I simply watch the ship plow on

  Through the Suez Canal, carrying along

  My life, mere camphor in the dawn.

  Gone are the days I put to good use.

  All I earned from my work was fatigue,

  Which feels today like an arm round my neck

  That chokes me and keeps me from falling.

  I was a child like everyone else,

  Born in a small town, Portuguese,

  And I’ve met people from England

  Who say I speak English with ease.

  I’d like to have poems and stories

  Published by Plon and Mércure,

  But I doubt this life—a voyage

  Without storms—can long endure!

  Though it has its amusing moments,

  Life on board is a sad affair.

  I talk with Germans, Swedes and Brits,

  But the pain of living is always there.

  To sail East to see China and India

  Wasn’t worth it after all.

  There’s only one way of living,

  And the earth’s the same, and small.

  That’s why I take opium. As a medicine.

  I’m convalescing from the Moment.

  I live on thought’s ground floor,

  And to see Life go by is a torment.

  I smoke. I yawn. Were there only an earth

  Where far to the east didn’t become west!

  Why did I visit the India that exists,

  If there’s no India but the soul I possess?

  Disgrace was my only legacy.

  The gypsies stole my Fortune.

  Perhaps not even near death will I see

  A shelter to keep me warm.

  I pretended to study engineering.

  Lived in Scotland. Saw Ireland on holiday.

  Outside the doors of Happiness my heart

  Begs for alms like a little old lady.

  Don’t call, iron ship, at Port Said!

  Turn right, I don’t even know where to.

  I pass the days with the count in the smoking room—

  A swindling French count who lingers at funerals.

  I glumly return to Europe, destined

  To become a sleepwalking poet.

  I’m a monarchist but not a Catholic,

  And I’d like to be someone of note.

  I’d like to have money and beliefs,

  To be various dull people I’ve seen.

  As things stand now, I’m nothing

  But a passenger on a ship at sea.

  I don’t have any personality.

  Even the cabin boy makes a more lasting

  Impression with his lofty bearing

  Of a Scottish laird who’s been fasting.

  I don’t belong anywhere. My country

  Is wherever I’m not. I’m sick and weak.

  The steward is a rogue. He saw me

  With the Swedish lady . . . and winked.

  One day I’ll cause a scandal on board

  Just to make the others tattle.

  I’m fed up with life and think it’s natural

  That sometimes I fly off the handle.

  I spend all day smoking and drinking

  American drugs that numb every pain—

  I, who am already naturally drunk!

  My rose-like nerves need a better brain.

  I can hardly even feel the talent

  I have for writing these lines.

  Life is a big house in the country

  That would bore any sensitive mind.

  The English were made for existence.

  No people has a closer alliance

  With Tranquility. Put in a coin

  And out comes an Englishman, all smiles.

  I belong to that class of Portuguese

  Who, once India was discovered, were out

  Of work. Death is a sure thing.

  This is something I often think about.

  To hell with life and having to live it!

  I don’t even read the book by my bed.

  I’m sick of the East. It’s a painted mat

  Whose beauty, once rolled up, is dead.

  So I fall into opium. It’s too much

  To expect me to live one of those ideal

  Lives. Honest people with set times

  For going to bed and taking their meals

  Can go to the devil! Yes, this is envy.

  These keyed-up nerves are my demise.

  If only some ship could take me to where

  I’d want only what I see with my eyes.

  Who am I fooling? I’d still get bored.

  I’d want a yet stronger opium, by which

  To reach dreams that would finish me off

  And pitch me into a muddy ditch.

  Fever! If what I have isn’t fever,

  Then I don’t know what fever’s like.

  The essential fact is that I’m sick.

  This hare, friends, has outrun its luck.

  Night has fallen. There’s the first blast

  Announcing dinner: time to get spruce.

  Social life above all else! We’ll promenade

  Like dogs until we work our collars loose.

  This story is bound to have a less

  Than happy close, with blood and a gun

  (Hooray!) at the end of my restlessness,

  For which nothing can be done.

  Whoever sees me must find me banal,

  Me and my life . . . A young chap, right!

  Even my monocle makes me belong

  To a universal stereotype.

  How many people like me toe the Line

  And, like me, are mystics!

  How many, under their de rigueur jackets,

  Feel, like me, the horror of existence!

  If at least I could be as interesting

  On the outside as I am inwardly!

  I’m s
piraling toward the Maelstrom’s center.

  My doing nothing is what condemned me.

  A do-nothing, yes, but with good reason!

  Could I but hold everyone in disdain

  And be, even if dressed in a shabby suit,

  A hero, handsome, damned, or insane!

  I feel like sticking my hands in my mouth

  And biting until I shake with pain.

  It would be an original activity

  And amuse the others, the so-called sane.

  Absurdity, like a flower from the India

  I never found in India, sprouts

  In my sick and tired brain. May God

  Change my life or else snuff it out . . .

  Let me stay here, in this chair,

  Until they pack me into a casket.

  I was born to be a mandarin

  But lack the serenity, tea, and mat.

  Ah, how I’d love to fall right from here

  Through a trapdoor—clack!—to my grave!

  Life tastes to me like mild tobacco.

  All I ever did was smoke life away.

  What I really want is faith and peace

  And to get these sensations under control.

  Put an end to this, God! Open the floodgates!

  Enough of this comedy in my soul!

 

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