Page:35 Sonnets by Fernando Pessoa.djvu/5



Whether we write or speak or do but look We are ever unapparent. What we are Cannot be transfused into word or book. Our soul from us is infinitely far. However much we give our thoughts the will To be our soul and gesture it abroad, Our hearts are incommunicable still. In what we show ourselves we are ignored. The abyss from soul to soul cannot be bridged By any skill of thought or trick of seeming. Unto our very selves we are abridged When we would utter to our thought our being. We are our dreams of ourselves, souls by gleams, And each to each other dreams of others' dreams. II.

If that apparent part of life's delight Our tingled flesh-sense circumscribes were seen By aught save reflex and co-carnal sight, Joy, flesh and life might prove but a gross screen. Haply Truth's body is no eyable being, Appearance even as appearance lies, Haply our close, dark, vague, warm sense of seeing Is the choked vision of blindfolded eyes. Wherefrom what comes to thought's sense of life? Nought. All is either the irrational world we see Or some aught-else whose being-unknown doth rot Its use for our thought's use. Whence taketh me A qualm-like ache of life, a body-deep Soul-hate of what we seek and what we weep.