To be great, be whole; exclude
Nothing, exaggerate nothing that is you.
Be whole in everything. Put all you are
Into the smallest thing you do.
The whole moon gleams in every pool,
It rides so high.
(1933)
in «Ricardo Reis ODES»
(Poems of Fernando Pessoa)
One after another, hard-pressed waves
Curl in their green motion
And hiss white foam into
The browness of sea shores.
Leisurely clouds one after the other
Break open their round motion
And sun burns the air space
bettween the scanty clouds.
Indifferent to me, as I to her,
This fair day's disposition
Takes little from my sense
of time evaporating.
Only a vague inconsequential ache
Halts a moment at the portal of my soul
And, after staring briefly at me,
Passes on, smiling at nothing.
(1918)
from «Ricardo Reis ODES»
(Poems of Fernando Pessoa)
