To the blind and the deaf I leave
the soul with boundaries,
For I try to perceive
All every way there is.
From the height of being aware
I contemplate earth and sky-
Innocently I stare:
Nothing I see is mine.
But I see so alertly,
Disperse myself in them so
That each thought turns me
Diverse at a blow.
And just as things are splinters
Of being, and are dispersed,
I break the soul to slivers
And into different persons.
And if I see my own
Soul with a fresh gaze,
I ask if that offers any
Chance I should judge and seize.
Ah, as much as the land, sea or
Vast sky, a man
Who belives he is his is astray.
I’m various and not mine.
And so, if things are splinters
Of the knowledge of the universe,
Let me be my own slivers,
Imprecise and diverse.
If all I perceive is alien
And I am absent from me,
How came it the soul
Ends up in a body?
Therefore I harmonize
Myself with what God made:
A diverse mode God has,
I am diverse modes.
God, therefore I imitate-
Who, when He made all,
Removed from it the infinite
and unity as well.
by Fernando Pessoa
Translated by Jonathan Griffin
From Selected Poems, published by Penguin Books
