Fernando Pessoa: Inscriptions (from English Poems)

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I

We pass and dream. Earth smiles. Virtue is rare.

Age, duty, gods weigh on our conscious bliss.

Hope for the best and for the worst prepare.

The sum of purposed wisdom speaks in this.

V

I conquered. Far barbarians hear my name.

Men were dice in my game,

But to my throw myself did lesser come:

I threw dice, Fate the sum.

VI

Some were as loved loved, some as prizes prized.

A natural wife to the fed man my mate,

I was sufficient to whom I sufficed.

I moved, slept, bore and aged without a fate.

VII

I put by pleasure Iike an alien bowl.

Stern, separate, mine, I looked towards where gods seem.

From behind me the common shadow stole.

Dreaming that I slept not, I slept my dream.

XII

Life lived us, not we life. We, as bees sip,

Looked, talked and had. Trees grow as we did last.

We loved the gods but as we see a ship.

Never aware of being aware, we passed.

XIII

The work is done. The hammer is laid down.

The artisans, that built the slow-grown town,

Have been succeeded by those who still built.

All this is something lack-of-something screening.

The thought whole has no meaning

But lies by Time's wall like a pitcher spilt.

XIV

This covers me, that erst had the blue sky.

This soil treads me, that once I trod. My hand

Put these inscriptions here, half knowing why;

Last, and hence seeing all, of the passing band.

Fernando Pessoa (1888-1935): Inscriptions, 1920, from English Poems, Lisbon, 1921