THE POET

FERNANDO PESSOA. it's not like i've read many of his poems but since i've read this one (2 years ago) he is my favorite poet and it is my favorite poem ever.

IN THE TERRIBLE NIGHT

in the terrible night,natural substance of every night,
in the night of insomnia, natural substance of all my nights.
i remember,awake in tossing drowsiness,
i remember what i've done and what i could have done in life.
i remember, and an anguish
spreads all through me like a physical chill or a fear,
the irreparable of my past - this is the real corpse.
all the other corpses may very well be illusion.
all the dead may be alive somewhere else,
all my own past moments may be existing somewhere
in the illusion of space and time,in the falsity elapsing.
but what i was not,what i did not do, what i did not even dream;
what only now i see i ought to have done,
what only now i clearly see i ought to have been -
this is what is dead beyond all the gods,
this - and it was, after all, the best of me - is what not even the gods
bring to life...

if at a certain point
i had turned to left instead of the right;
if at a certain moment
i had said yes instead of no or no instead of yes;
in a certain conversation
i had hit on the phrases which only now, in this half - sleep,
i elaborate

if all this had been so,
i would be different today, and perhaps the whole universe
would be insensibly brought to be different as well.

but i did turn in the direction which is irreparably lost,
not turn or even think of turning, and only now i perceive it,
but i did not say no or say yes, and only now see what i didn't say;
but the phrases i failed to say surge up in me at present, all of them,
clear, inevitable, natural,
the conversation gathered in conclusively,
the whole matter resolved ...
but only now what never was, nor indeed shall be, hurts.

what i have missed definitely holds no sort of hope
in any sort of metaphysical system.
maybe i could bring back what i have dreamed to some other world,
but could i bring to another world the things i forgot to dream?
these, yes, the dreams going begging, are the real corpse.
i bury it in my heart for ever, for all time, for all universes,

in this night when i cannot sleep and peace encircles me
like a truth which i've no share in,
and the moonlight outside, like a hope
i do not have,is invisible
to me