Page:35 Sonnets by Fernando Pessoa.djvu/10



Like to a ship that storms urge on its course, By its own trials our soul is surer made. The very things that make the voyage worse Do make it better; its peril is its aid. And, as the storm drives from the storm, our heart Within the peril disimperilled grows; A port is near the more from port we part— The port whereto our driven direction goes. If we reap knowledge to cross-profit, this From storms we learn, when the storm's height doth drive— That the black presence of its violence is The pushing promise of near far blue skies. Learn we but how to have the pilot-skill, And the storm's very might shall mate our will.

As the lone, frighted user of a night-road Suddenly turns round, nothing to detect, Yet on his fear's sense keepeth still the load Of that brink-nothing he doth but suspect; And the cold terror moves to him more near Of something that from nothing casts a spell, That, when he moves, to fright more is not there, And's only visible when invisible So I upon the world turn round in thought, And nothing viewing do no courage take, But my more terror, from no seen cause got, To that felt corporate emptiness forsake, And draw my sense of mystery's horror from Seeing no mystery's mystery alone.