Fernando Pessoa–Sonnet X

Pessoa (13 June 1888 - 30 November 1935)

X
As to a child, I talked my heart asleep
With empty promise of the coming day,
And it slept rather for my words made sleep
Than from a thought of what their sense did say.
For did it care for sense, would it not wake
And question closer to the morrow’s pleasure?
Would it not edge nearer my words, to take
The promise in the meting of its measure?
So, if it slept, ’twas that it cared but for
The present sleepy use of promised joy,
Thanking the fruit but for the forecome flower
Which the less active senses best enjoy.
      Thus with deceit do I detain the heart
      Of which deceit’s self knows itself a part.

–Fernando Pessoa

Birthday Max

Max (17 November 2010)

WHEREFORE?

O me! O life!–of the questions of these recurring;
Of the endless trains of the faithless–of cities filled with the foolish;
Of myself for ever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and
         who more faithless?)
Of eyes that vainly crave the light–of the objects mean–of the struggle
         ever renewed;
Of the poor results of all–of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around
         me;
Of the empty and useless years of the rest–with the rest me intertwined;
The question, O me! so sad, recurring–What good amid these, O me, O life?

ANSWER.

That you are here–that life exists, and identity;
That the powerful play goes on, and you will contribute a verse.
–Walt Whitman

Mark Strand–”Man and Camel”

MAN AND CAMEL
On the eve of my fortieth birthday
I sat on the porch having a smoke
when out of the blue a man and a camel
happened by. Neither uttered a sound
at first, but as they drifted up the street
and out of town the two of them began to sing.
Yet what they sang is still a mystery to me—
the words were indistinct and the tune
too ornamental to recall. Into the desert
they went and as they went their voices
rose as one above the sifting sound
of windblown sand. The wonder of their singing,
its elusive blend of man and camel, seemed
an ideal image for all uncommon couples.
Was this the night that I had waited for
so long? I wanted to believe it was,
but just as they were vanishing, the man
and camel ceased to sing, and galloped
back to town. They stood before my porch,
staring up at me with beady eyes, and said:
“You ruined it. You ruined it forever.”

–Mark Strand

Image: Detail from the camel’s way … by lovelypetal

Robert Frost–”Choose Something Like a Star”

CHOOSE SOMETHING LIKE A STAR
O Star (the fairest one in sight),
We grant your loftiness the right
To some obscurity of cloud –
It will not do to say of night,
Since dark is what brings out your light.
Some mystery becomes the proud.
But to be wholly taciturn
In your reserve is not allowed.

Say something to us we can learn
By heart and when alone repeat.
Say something! And it says “I burn.”
But say with what degree of heat.
Talk Fahrenheit, talk Centigrade.
Use language we can comprehend.
Tell us what elements you blend.

It gives us strangely little aid,
But does tell something in the end.
And steadfast as Keats’ Eremite,
Not even stooping from its sphere,
It asks a little of us here.
It asks of us a certain height,
So when at times the mob is swayed
To carry praise or blame too far,
We may choose something like a star
To stay our minds on and be staid.
–Robert Frost

Image: Raise your hands by shaggy359