Fernando Pessoa and Co.: Selected Poems

by Fernando Pessoa

Overview

Fernando Pessoa-a poet who lived most of his life in Lisbon, Portugal, and who died in obscurity there-is now recognized as one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century. In a newly updated and expanded edition of his celebrated 1998 Fernando Pessoa & Co., which Booklist hailed as "a beautiful one-volume course in the soul of the twentieth century," translator and biographer Richard Zenith brings together Pessoa's most memorable poetic works. Present here is poetry by Pessoa's famous trio of alter egos-Alberto Caeiro, Ricardo Reis, and Álvaro de Campos-as well as a varied selection of poems signed by Pessoa's own name. From spare minimalism to revolutionary exuberance, Fernando Pessoa & Co. showcases the seminal poet's timeless and innovative work in all of its extraordinary depth and poetic passion.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780802159168
Publisher:	Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
Publication date:	03/15/2022
Pages:	320
Sales rank:	1,104,026
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.25(h) x (d)

About the Author

Fernando Pessoa (1888-1935) was born in Lisbon, spent nine years of his childhood in Durban, South Africa, and then returned to his native city, where he earned a modest income as a commercial translator and lived for his writing. Most of his vast body of work was published posthumously.

Richard Zenith is an acclaimed translator and the author of Pessoa: A Biography. He produced the first complete English translation of Pessoa’s The Book of Disquiet and won the PEN Award for Poetry in Translation with Fernando Pessoa and Co.: Selected Poems. He lives in Lisbon, Portugal.

Table of Contents

About This New and Expanded Edition xi

Introduction: The Drama and Dream of Fernando Pessoa 1

Alberto Caeiro: The Unwitting Master 35

from The Keeper of Sheep 41

1 I've never kept sheep 43

2 My gaze is clear like a sunflower 46

5 To not think of anything is metaphysics enough 47

9 I'm a keeper of sheep 50

10 "Hello, keeper of sheep" 51

18 I'd rather be the dust of the road 52

20 The Tagus is more beautiful than the river that flows through my village 53

22 As when a man opens his front door on a summer day 54

23 My gaze, blue like the sky 55

24 What we see of things are the things 56

32 Yesterday afternoon a man from the cities 57

37 Like a large blot of smudged fife 59

38 Blessed be the same sun of other lands 60

39 The mystery of things-where is it? 61

40 I see a butterfly go by 62

42 The coach came down the road, and went on 63

47 On an incredibly clear day 64

from The Shepherd in Love 65

Before I had you 67

Perhaps those who are good at seeing are poor at feeling 68

The shepherd in love lost his staff 69

from Uncollected Poems 71

When Spring returns 73

If I die young 74

It is night. It's very dark. In a distant house 76

On this whitely cloudy day I get so sad it almost scares me 77

The child who thinks about fairies and believes in fairies 79

Morning breaks. No: morning doesn't break 80

Slowly the field unrolls and shines golden 81

Yesterday the preacher of truths (his truths) 82

They spoke to me of people, and of humanity 83

I lie down in the grass 84

Dirty unknown child playing outside my door 85

You who are a mystic see a meaning in all things 86

Ah! They want a light that's better than the sun's 87

Yes: I exist inside my body 88

I like the sky because I don't believe it's infinite 89

To see the fields and the river 90

This morning I went out very early 91

I can also make conjectures 92

This may be the last day of my life 93

Ricardo Reis: The Sad Epicurean 95

from Odes 101

The gods grant nothing more than life 103

Don't clap your hands before beauty 104

Ah, you believers in Christs and Marys 105

On this day when the green fields 106

Here, with no other Apollo than Apollo 107

Above the truth reign the gods 108

Let the gods 109

Lips red from wine 111

I prefer roses, my love, to the homeland 112

Follow your destiny 113

I was never one who in love or in friendship 114

O morning that breaks without looking at me 115

At those times when, walking in the fields 116

Obey the law, whether it's wrong or you are 117

I want my verses to be like jewels 118

Day after day life's the same life 119

Your blithe and lovely youthfulness 120

Who values the mind can value no destiny 121

As if each kiss 122

Fate frightens me, Lydia. Nothing is certain 123

I devote my higher mind to the ardent 124

My eyes see the fields, the fields 125

Not only wine but its oblivion I pour 126

How much sadness and bitterness 127

Solemnly over the fertile land 128

As long as I feel the breeze ruffle my hair 129

The one I loved is not here, you say 130

Looking back, I see a different me 131

What we feel, not what is felt 132

I don't know if the love you give me is real 133

Want little: you'll have everything 134

I was left in the world,-all alone 135

No one in the vast religious jungle 136

Others narrate with lyres or harps 137

I tell with severity. I think what I feel 138

I placidly wait for what I don't know 139

Countless lives inhabit us 140

Álvaro De Campos: The Jaded Sensationist 141

Looking at myself, I can't believe 145

Listen, Daisy. When I die, although 146

Ah, the first minutes in cafes of new cities 147

Time's Passage 148

It was on one of my voyages 171

The best way to travel, after all, is to feel 173

I leaned back in the deck chair and closed my eyes 177

Ah, Margarida 178

The Tobacco Shop 179

Porto-Style Tripe 186

A Note in the Margin 187

Deferral 189

Sometimes I meditate 191

On the Last Page of a New Anthology 192

Ah, the freshness in the face of leaving a task undone 193

At long last … no doubt about it 194

Pop 195

I walk in the night of the suburban street 196

Yes, I know it's all quite natural 198

Streetcar Stop 200

Birthday 201

No! All 1 want is freedom 203

But it's not just the cadaver 204

I'd like to be able to like liking 205

Reality 206

I'm beginning to know myself. I don't exist 208

Pack your bags for nowhere at all 209

This old anguish 210

I got off the train 212

Music. Yes, music 213

Impassively 214

On the eve of never departing 215

Symbols? I'm sick of symbols 216

The ancients invoked the Muses 217

I don't know if the stars rule the world 218

I'm thinking about nothing at all 219

All love letters are 220

Fernando Pessoa-Himself: The Mask Behind the Man 221

from Songbook 227

Ocean. Morning. 229

The Other Love 230

At times I'm the god that lives in me 231

Slanting Rain (VI) 232

The wind is blowing too hard 234

Stations of the Cross (IV) 235

Stations of the Cross (XIII) 236

The Mummy 237

Song 242

Epigram 243

In the light-footed march of heavy time 244

Christmas 245

By the moonlight, in the distance 246

Dreams, systems, myths, ideals 247

Mother's Little Boy 248

This species of madness 249

Waterfront 250

Some Music 251

There's a song I hear people sing 252

I feel sony for the stars 253

I seem to be growing calm 254

I contemplate the silent pond 255

Like a uselessly hill glass 256

The sun shining over the field 257

I don't know how many souls I have 258

The soul with boundaries 259

I'm sorry I don't respond 261

Autopsychography 262

I don't know how to be truly sad 263

The clouds are dark 264

Like an astonishment in which 265

If I think for more than a moment 266

From the mountain comes a song 267

The wind in the darkness howls 268

With a smile and without haste 269

Outside where the trees 270

I hear in the night across the street 271

This 272

The day is quiet, quiet is the wind 273

The sun rests unmoving 274

The washwoman at the fountain 275

To travel! To change countries 276

Day by day we change into whom 277

Sleep 278

This great wavering between 279

I have in me like a haze 280

I divide what I know 281

When 1 feel tired and want to be someone 282

from Message 283

Prince Henry 285

The Stone Pillar 286

The Sea Monster 287

Ferdinand Magellan 288

Portuguese Sea 289

Prayer 290

Storm 291

Notes to the Introduction and the Poems 293

Bibliography 299