Translated from the Portuguese by Abhik Ganguly
This
They say I feign or lie
In all that I write. No.
I simply feel
With imagination
The heart is not what I use.
All that I dream or endure
What fails me or comes to an end,
Is like a terrace
Over something else still
That thing is what is beautiful.
So I write amidst
What’s not close at hand,
Free of my own entanglement,
Serious about what is not.
To feel? Let the reader feel!
I am a Keeper of Herds
I am a keeper of herds.
The herd is my thoughts
And my thoughts are but sensations.
I think with my eyes and with my ears
And with my hands and my feet
And with my nose and my mouth.
To think a flower is to see it and smell it
And to eat a fruit is to know its sense.
So when on a hot day
I feel sad at enjoying it so much,
And I lie stretched out on the grass,
And close my warm eyes,
I feel my whole body lying in reality
I know the truth and that makes me happy.
Fernando Pessoa [1888–1935] was a Portuguese poet, writer, literary critic, translator, and publisher. He has been described as one of the most significant literary figures of the 20th century and one of the greatest poets in Portuguese literature. He also wrote in and translated from English and French. Pessoa was a prolific writer both in his own name and approximately seventy-five other names (‘heteronyms’), of which three stand out: Alberto Caeiro, Álvaro de Campos, and Ricardo Reis.
Abhik Ganguly is a poet, writer, and scholar-practitioner. Currently, he’s a Junior Research Fellow pursuing his PhD at the Department of English, University of Delhi. He can be reached on Instagram: @abhik_ganguly_ and X: @GangulyRicky.