Set the great Flemish hour aflame!
Your senses of all leisure maim!
Cast down with blows that joy even where they hurt
The hands that mock to avert!
All things pick up to bed that lead ye to
Be naked that ye woo!
Tear up, pluck up, like earth who treasure seek,
When the chest’s ring doth peep,
The thoughts that cover thoughts of the acts of heat
This great day does intreat!
Now seem all hands pressing the paps as if
They meant them juice to give!
Now seem all things pairing on one another,
Hard flesh soft flesh to smother,
And hairy legs and buttocks balled to split
White legs mid which they shift.
Yet these mixed mere thoughts in each mind but speak
The day’s push love to wreak,
The man’s ache to have felt possession,
The woman’s man to have on,
The abstract surge of life clearly to reach
The bodies’ concrete beach.
Yet some work of this doth the real day don.
Now are skirts lifted in the servants’ hall,
And the whored belly’s stall
Ope to the horse that enters in a rush,
Half late, too near the gush.
And even now doth an elder guest emmesh
A flushed young girl in a dark nook apart,
And leads her slow to move his produced flesh.
Look how she likes with something in her heart
To feel her hand work the protruded dart!
But these are thoughts or promises or but
Half the purpose of rut,
And this is lust thought-of or futureless
Or used but lust to ease.
Do ye the circle true of love pretend,
And, what Nature, intend!
Do ye actually ache
The horse of lust by reins of life to bend
And pair in love for love’s creating sake!
Bellow! Roar! Stallions be or bulls that fret
On their seed’s hole to get!
Surge for that carnal complement that will
Your flesh’s young juice thrill
To the wet mortised joints at which you meet
The coming life to greet,
In the tilled womb that will bulge till it do
The plenteous curve of spheric earth renew!
And ye, that wed to-day, guess these instincts
Of the concerted group in hints
Yourselves from Nature naturally have,
And your good future brave!
Close lips, nude arms, felt breasts and organ mighty,
Do your joy’s night work rightly!
Teach them these things, O day of pomp of heat!
Leave them in thoughts such as must make the feat
Of flesh inevitable and natural as
Pissing when wish doth press!
Let them cling, kiss and fit
Together with natural wit,
And let the night, coming, teach them that use
For youth is in abuse!
Let them repeat the link, and pour and pour
Their pleasure till they can no more!
Ay, let the night watch over their repeated
Coupling in darkness, till thought’s self, o’erheated,
Do fret and trouble, and sleep come on hurt frames,
And, mouthing each one’s names,
They in each other’s arms dream still of love
And something of it prove!
And, if they wake, teach them to recommence,
For an hour was far hence;
Till their contacted flesh, in heat o’erblent
With joy, sleep sick, while, spent
The stars, the sky pale in the East and shiver
Where light the night doth sever,
And with clamour of joy and life’s young din
The warm new day come in.
Far away, far away,
Far away from here …
There is no worry after joy
Or away from fear
Far away from here.
Her lips were not very red,
Nor her hair quite gold.
Her hands played with rings.
She did not let me hold
Her hands playing with gold.
She is something past,
Far away from pain.
Joy can touch her not, nor hope
Enter her domain,
Neither love in vain.
Perhaps at some day beyond
Shadows and light
She will think of me and make
All me a delight
All away from sight.
From the moonlit brink of dreams
I stretch foiled hands to thee,
O borne down other streams
Than eye can think to see!
O crowned with spirit-beams!
O veiled spirituality!
My dreams and thoughts abate
Their pennons at thy feet,
O angel born too late
For fallen men to meet!
In what new sensual state
Could our twined lives feel sweet?
What new emotion must
I dream to think thee mine?
What purity of lust?
O tendrilled as a vine
Around my caressed trust!
O dream-pressed spirit-wine!
Poetry
was compiled from poetry published between 1918 and 1923 by
Fernando Pessoa.
This ebook was produced for
Standard Ebooks
by
Erin Endrei,
and is based on transcriptions from
various sources
and on digital scans from
various sources.
The cover page is adapted from
Still-Life with the Self-Portrait,
a painting completed in 1922 by
Väinö Kunnas.
The cover and title pages feature the
League Spartan and Sorts Mill Goudy
typefaces created in 2014 and 2009 by
The League of Moveable Type.
The first edition of this ebook was released on
January 24, 2024, 6:08 p.m.
You can check for updates to this ebook, view its revision history, or download it for different ereading systems at
standardebooks.org/ebooks/fernando-pessoa/poetry.
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May you do good and not evil.
May you find forgiveness for yourself and forgive others.
May you share freely, never taking more than you give.
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