Alma

Nada fica de nada. Nada somos.
Um pouco ao sol e ao ar nos atrasamos
Da irrespirável treva que nos pese
        Da húmida terra imposta,
Cadáveres adiados que procriam.

Leis feitas, estátuas vistas, odes findas —
Tudo tem cova sua. Se nós, carnes
A que um íntimo sol dá sangue, temos
        Poente, porque não elas?
Somos contos contando contos, nada.

Cada um é um mundo; e como em cada fonte
Uma deidade vela, em cada homem
        Porque não há de haver
        Um deus só de ele homem?

Na encoberta sucessão das cousas,
Só o sábio sente, que não foi mais nada
        Que a vida que deixou.

V.

My child, I see thine eyes upon
A shadow, as cast by the wings
When a swift bird passes close by
The castle-window before the sun:
So through thy glance the shadows fly...

The souls of things dead and bygone
Haunt the appearances of living things

I.

Thy hand with its lovely fingers
        And the heavy rings on them!
How my soul over them lingers
Each finger with a heavy gem,
Each ring like a small diadem!

When thou and I are alone,
One only wish my soul stings —
Holding thy hand in my own,
All night, while the night-bird sings,
To take off and replace thy rings.

[I.]
Take me up in thine arms, oh some mother.
Take me up in thine arms, make me a child.
An endless lack of joy every joy doth smother
That rises in me, sudden or great or mild.

Take me up in thine arms, rock me to sleep.
Rock me to sleep in a great meaningless way.
And may I hear, like one who sleeps in a house by a bay,
A great loud wind rise like a life from the deep
And cease as I fall asleep like a life that passes away.

II.
All I have wished to do, mother, I have not done.
Even what I wish to feel makes mistakes within me.
I grow tired, dimly tired, of the calm and constant sun,
And restless beside the happier restlessness of the sea.

Oh for a boat to believe I might sail in it and go,
Beyond the walls of my sensations' world and become
A floating absence from my worn self, a discarded woe
Trailing behind me likes a ship's trail, shining through
My consciousness of having dropt my life like a lamp in a home.

III.
Mother, my cheeks grow thin with cares I forget to know.
With things I forget to feel, nor know how to think, I pine.
Mine envy, mother, is with the figure of the sturdy man at the wheel,
That does his duty in storms and is salt at soul with good brine.

My heart is lost to a perillous life full of achievement and breath.
My thoughts are given like gifts to a life I could never live.
Teach me how to myself my own life I can forgive.
Teach me how to love life, at least how not to fear death,
And be all that you teach in the sense of a mute kiss you give.


IV.
Rock me to and fro in your arms, mother. It is night.
There is something of endless motion, of final ceasing of care,
In your rocking of me now from now into the light
That the cottage lamp sheds on your rocking fire with the same yellow flare.

Let me sleep, let me sleep, outsleep the ages and Time.
Drift far away from space like a hulk away from shore.
Be your arms around me like a land or a day or a clime,
Be your casual lips on my brow like forgiveness of crime.
Rock me till I lose being, mother, rock me still more.

V.
My pain outgrows my power to feel pain. I am numb. I am faint.
I sicken from having lived no life, but all dreams, dreams, dreams,
My soul is poisoned, mother, with an old and mysterious tai[nt]
And now that you have stopped rocking full on my brow the lamp gleams.

Hide me, mother, from the light for it seems that it sees.
Hide me, make me be blurred against your breast and the night.
Lo! outside the great swell of the dim and eternal seas!
Mother, whom do we wait, to return from beyond the seas?
Is it for anyone at sea that the joy of our lamp we light.

VI.
The wind hath risen, the wind hath risen. Something is colder and truer.
Something of life and its mystery creeps into the room.
Mother, stop the window chinks, make the door fast and sure.
We never know what horror it is that out of the Night may come.

We know not whom we await. It may be worse than the dark.
It may be shapeless unto our thought and dread as God if he be...
Mother, new sounds are creeping like snakes through the darkness. Hark!
Is it the wind you fear? Is it the sea you remark?
Mother, make me to sleep at once, ere I may hear or see.

VII.
When will it born. Mother, this fear and this smart,
This ache as of something lost or something near to be found,
Coils like a viscous impossible manner of snake round the heart
And the night, mother, the night without being nor bound!...
Put your arms so much around me, so much, so close so fast
That they cover the eyes of my fancy and cling round my thought's quick ear.
Mother, let us not see if the night will pass or last.
Let us not think nor be... Let life be as if past.
Let our total and infinite death be the day and the ceasing of fear.

Here lieth A[lexander] S[earch]
Whom God and man left in the lurch
And nature mocked with pain and woe
He believed not in state or church
Nor in God, woman, man or love
Nor earth below nor heaven above.
His knowledge did to this about:
(...) and love is not
Nothing is everywhere sincere
Save sorrow, hatred, lust and fear
And even these sometimes do look
Less than in the ill they work.

He died at twenty odd
This was is dying sentiment:
Accurst be Nature, Man and God.

Oh, solitary star, that with bright ray
Lookst from the bosom of envolving night,
Loveliest that none contests thy spaceful way
Now when with rivals is the sky not dight.

Vouch safe on me to keep thy tiny stare
Blinking at night as if in sleepy joy,
Or as the sleepy eyes of some young fair
Who chides their closing to her thought's warm toy.

That there are other stars I well do know
And others that may shine more bright and true;
And yet I wish them not, for one doth so
Outwit decision and attention sue.

And if from this thou can no lesson learn.
Much hast thou spurned that Goodness may not spurn

IV.

1.
When thou didst speak but now I felt
        A terror mad and strange.
Conceive it thou. I could have knelt
To thy lips, to their curve, to its change.
        The talking curve of thy lips
        And thy teeth but slightly shown
Were my delirium's waking whips.
        I felt my reason overthrown.

A super-sensual fetichism
        Haunts my deep-raving brain.
Greater than ever grows the abysm
Of my reason's and feeling's schism,
        Cut with the pickaxe of pain.

More than they show all things contain.

2.
Something not of this world doth lie
        In thy smile, in thy lips live turn;
A figure, a form I know not why
That wakes in me — without a sigh
        But with terror I cannot spurn
        With terror wild and mute —
Is it remembrances, is it
        Desires so vague half-known they flit
And not in thought nor sentiment take root?

        My mind grows madder and more fit
        In everything to catch and find
        Meanings, resemblances defined
        By not a form that thought can hit.

Smile not. Thou canst not comprehend!
        What is this? What truth doth sleep
        In these ravings without end
                And beyond notion deep?
Laugh not. Know'st thou what madness is?
Wonder not. All is mysteries.
        Ask not. For who can reply?
Weep for me, child, but do not love me
Who have in me too much that is above me,
        Too much I cannot call «I».
        Weep for the ruin of my mind
Weep rather, child, that things so deep should move me
        To lose the clear thoughts that could prove me
                One worthy of mankind.

O capilé é barato
E é fresco quando há calor.
Vou sonhar o teu retrato
Já que não tenho melhor.

«Ribeirinho, ribeirinho,
Que vais a correr ao léu
Tu vais a correr sozinho,
Ribeirinho, como eu.»

II

Mas antes era o Verbo, aqui perdido
Quando a Infinita Luz, já apagada
Do Caos, chão do Ser, foi levantada
Em Sombra, e o Verbo ausente escurecido.

Mas se a Alma sente a sua forma errada,
Em si, que é Sombra, vê enfim luzido
O Verbo deste Mundo, humano e ungido.
Rosa Perfeita, em Deus crucificada.

Então, senhores do limiar dos Céus,
Podemos ir buscar além de Deus
O Segredo do Mestre e o Bem profundo;

Não só de aqui, mas já de nós, despertos,
No sangue actual de Cristo enfim libertos
Do a Deus que morre a geração do Mundo.

First there was but the moon
        And the black‑tramelled trees
In the lunar lagoon
        Of the forgotten breeze.

Then some unseen thing stirred
        Where the moon‑silence snowed
And a vague whirl unheard
        Vacantly tip‑toed.

Slowly, idly, alone,
        Beyond the eyes of sight,
Somewhere invisibly shown,
        They danced their delight.

Their far vagueness wound
        Round the heart a pain,
A phantom fear found
        Voluble and vain.

The heart remembered lives
        Before loves and homes,
Whose rare memory revives
        Only when this dance comes.

A wish for a vague thing soon,
        A loosened sense of selves,
A thing in the soul like moon,
        Aught in the hopes like elves -

Tip‑toe aerial gliding
        Shadow‑lunar blent,
Bending, mingling, hiding,
        To and fro they went.

Left and right, belonging
        To no place, they swayed.
A low pipe, like longing,
        To their dancing played.

There, in the silence dropped
        Like a thing on the ground,
Whirled they awhile, then stopped,
        Then renewed their round,

Till with their slowing turns
        The cold air grows more bare.
Then the mere moonlight returns
        And there had been nothing there.

Vai longe, na serra alta,
A nuvem que nela toca...
Dá-me aquilo que me falta —
Os beijos da tua boca.

I love this world and all these men because
I shall not love them long. That we do die
I believe not, bound fast to higher laws,
But that we lose this world do not deny.

This light that in the sea makes many a light,
This breeze so soft when least we feel it most,
May be replaced by a diviner sight
Or by a truer breeze; but these are lost.

Like some strange trick of childhood that was ill
Yet had the childhood, in it I regret
Perchance in some far world sublime and stiIl,
The childhood that I never shall forget —

No, nor these toys of sense —this world, these men —,
Dear now when had because dear when lost then.

Weep, violin and viol,
        Low flute and fine bassoon.
Lo, an enchanted isle
        Moon‑bound beneath the moon!
My dream‑feet rustle through it
        Chequered by shade and beam.
Oh, could my soul but woo it
        From being but a dream!

Violin, viol and flute.
        Lo, the isle hangs in air!
Through it I wander, mute
        With too much loss of care.
And the air where't doth float
        No air's, but light of moon.
Its paths are known to each note
        Of viol and bassoon.

Yet is it real, that isle,
        As our clear islands mortal?
Do flute, bassoon and viol
        But ope with sound a portal,
And show, somehow, somewhere,
        To what looks out from me
That pendulous island rare
        In a moon‑woven sea?

Maybe 'tis truer than ours.
        How true are these? But lo!
That isle that knows no hours
        Nor needeth hours to know,
And that hath truth and root
        Somewhere known of the moon,
Fades in the fading of flute,
        Violin and bassoon.

Como este infante que alourado dorme
        Fui. Hoje sei que há morte.
Lídia, há largas taças por encher
        Nosso amor que nos tarda.
        Qualquer que seja o amor ou as taças, breve
          Ajamos. Teme e desfruta.

III

Ah, mas aqui, onde irreais erramos,
Dormimos o que somos, e a verdade,
Inda que enfim em sonhos a vejamos,
Vemo-la, porque em sonho, em falsidade.

Sombras buscando corpos, se os achamos
Como sentir a sua realidade?
Com mãos de sombra, Sombras, que tocamos?
Nosso toque é ausência e vacuidade.

Quem desta Alma fechada nos liberta?
Sem ver, ouvimos para além da sala
De ser; mas como, aqui, a porta aberta?

......

Calmo na falsa morte a nós exposto,
O Livro ocluso contra o peito posto,
Nosso Pai Roseacruz conhece e cala.

Mother, my cheeks are wet.
        Let down my hair and kiss
My brow. I seem to forget
        Even if I think of this.

Lullaby to me, mother,
        Lullaby to me.
I loved and was not loved, mother.
        Kiss me and let me be.

Let me sleep as of old, thy hand
        On my brow, so calm and so deep,
That I feel't on my soul, my soul fanned
        By thy breath on the face of my sleep.

I am but a little ship, mother,
        Lost out in the sea.
Lullaby to me, mother,
        Lullaby to me.

Ai, os pratos de arroz-doce
Com as linhas de canela!
Ai a mão branca que os trouxe!
Ai essa mão ser a dela!

O voice the angels kissed when unbreathed yet!
O lips made spiritual with uttering it!
O eyes wild with the lust of the divine
In thy felt presence, making thee its shrine!
O that this moment of thee were Thyself!
That thou ne’er fell'st from this Thou, and the pelf
Of gathered days with avarice of living,
Touched thee not from this moment of God's giving!
O eternal actuality of thee!
O by thy voice sculptured immutably
In some stone‑flesh of spirit! O set free
From being all contained in being seen!
O firmament of joy purely serene
With spaciousness of soul and stars of song
Above thyself, God's human heights among!

Sing on, and let thy singing be a couch
To that of me which to my soul doth vouch
Of God as of a self and of a home!
Dissolve me to thy notes! Make me become
An outside of myself, and have in me
Nought but a selfless sense of hearing thee!
Let me pertain to the sounds thou dost voice!
Let me be other than I and rejoice
Hearing time like a breeze pass by the place
Thy song imprisons in its halcyon grace!

Thy voice compels to parapets from heaven
Dim winged happinesses whence is woven
To our souls such a glamour, spirit‑fair,
That, feeling it, all life becomes despair
And all the sense of life to wish to die.
Sing on! Between the music's human cry
And thy song's meaning there is interposed
Some third reality, less life‑enclosed,
Some subtler tenderness than music makes
Or words sung, and its moonless moonlight takes
Our visionary moods by their child‑hand
And our tired steps begin to understand.

Sing, nor stop singing till bliss ache too much!
O that I could, without moving my hand,
Stretch forth some hand imaginary and touch
That body of thine thy singing giveth thee!
That kiss‑like touch would wake eternity
In me again, and, as by a great morn,
The night my body makes of me were torn
Away from being, and my unbodied shape
Would, like a ship doubling the final cape,
Come to that sight of port and shiver of coming
That God allows to those whose bliss of roaming
Is no more than the wish to find His peace
And mingle with it as a scent with the breeze.

Vida, morte,
Riso, pranto
É o manto
Que me cobre.
Natureza,
Amor, beleza,
Tudo quanto
A alma descobre.

O Mistério
Deste mundo
Teu profundo
Olhar leu;
D'além dele —
Cerra a alma
De pavor! —
Venho eu.
Nada, nada
Já acalma
Tua dor.
Tu bem sabes
Ser minha voz
Mais atroz
De mudo horror
No que não diz,
E só tu sentes
E compreendes.
Cerra, infeliz
Cerra a (tua) alma
Ao meu pavor!

(Fausto, com os olhos fechados, encolhido na cadeira, treme como que dum grande frio.)

I had a self and life
        Before this life and self.
When the moon makes woods rife
        With possible fay or elf,
There comes in me a dreaming
That is like a light gleaming
        Somewhere in me away,
On seas that I have known
And placeless lands that own
        Another kind of day.

I dream, and as a blast
        Fans into fire an ember,
My heart gleams with a past
        That I cannot remember.
And as the ember's glowing
Is not fire but fire's showing,
        I waste the empty pelf
Of my mute sense of me.
As rain within the sea
        I fade within myself.

There are mazes of I.
        I am my unknown being.
I have, I know not why,
        Another kind of seeing
(Other than this vain vision
That is my soul's division
        From what girds sight about)
Where to see is to know,
Whose life is faith, and woe
        Fled by the hand of Doubt.

My life has happy hours:
        'Tis when I feel not living;
And, as the scent of flowers
        Round flowers a flower‑soul weaving
That is a corporate spirit,
From myself I inherit,
        My soul's blood's spirit‑air,
A foreself and inself
Which is the being‑pelf
        That with God's loss I share.

Let us rest. Every hour is not the next.
May this wreathe round with more than emptiness
The meaning of the ciphered living text
We owe to living and to thought confess.

Let us rest. Every hour is not the last.
A consolation comes from being late
Even at happiness, lest near winds blast
The present flower and fate still follow fate.

Let us rest. Power is useless and life vain.
To ask means to be answered with not giving.
To move towards pleasure is to walk on pain,
And having to live takes life out of living.

So there is no true thought nor just behest,
Nor pomp worthing having. Let us rest.

Before light was, light's bright idea lit
        God's thought of it,
And, because through God's thought light's thought did pass,
        Light ever was,
And from beyond eternity became
        The living flame
That trembles into life and reddens with
        Our life's soul‑width.

Before light was, when yet the night was queen
        O'er what had been,
In God's realized prescience it could be
        Light from eternity,
For no time enters into God's thoughts or
        Their spaceless Hour.

Take thou therefore, my Song, from light the mood
        Of being, and brood,
Like the Dove unbegot, over the abyss
        Of consciousness,
Taking as thy true part that thought of God
        Whence light issued.

Let my words burst into that divine flame
        That lights its name
Of each thing from within with ultimate meaning.
        Though earth be screening
With fixed appearance the Sun in each Thing,
        Bear, on thy wing
High‑lifted, rays from the unrisen Sun
        Whence life is spun.

Soar out, my Song, out of despair and night
        And catch that light
Ere it appear, from neath the horizon
        Of action,
Borne out of dreams by intuition bright
        Of endless light.

Though none believe nor any understand,
        Yet feel thee fanned
With those breeze‑breaths that come up with the morn
        From the Unborn.
Soar like a lark into the coming day
        And bear thy way
Into the possibility of noon
        Hid in the dawn.

No matter that none know what thy words speak.
        A day shall break
Out of eternity as each day bright
        Out of each night.
Thy wings shall touch the slanting light of dawn
        And, upwards drawn
By being light‑struck, shall to light be near
        When light's yet far.

Hope is thy ready and high‑soaring flight
        Out of the night,
Joy is thy touching of the first high rays
        That day betrays,
Life is the course thy flight sequesters from
        Earth and its nightly doom,
And these three things are one in thy belief
        That pain is brief.

II

Thou, unseeen Bird, essence of spiritual light,
        That yet art bright
With the epitome of the outer shine,
        Thou that art mine
And yet not mine but general to the earth,
        Wings of rebirth,
Whose song, though in me heard, participates
        Of all that all elates,
Thou point of meeting of me with the wings
        Hidden in all things,
Thou breath, thou vapour, seen and not seen, of
        Some abstract love,
Thou exhalation of the prisoned flight
        Of all things' weight,
Thou that in me art fear, mad splendour, all
        To ache and enthral,

Attract me, take me, o pure flight, and rise
        With me in thine eyes,
Lost, cast, unpetalled and divine, up to
        What thou dost woo!

O Spirit‑Lark that wakest ere the morn
        And art reborn
At each recoming of the sun, and art
        The wiser part
Of all that message is to our low eyes
        Of what shall rise!
Life‑weightless Bird that no meads can attract,
        But that must act
Its fate in air, above our marshes sad
        And meads low‑laid,
In free heights communing with the Great Horn
        As yet unborn!
O sterile Bird that hast no nest nor home
        But what shall come,
That hast no song save in the heights above
        Nests, homes and love,
Nor any thought save for the coming day,
        Though far away
It seem to those who measure yet thy flight
        But by its height
And not by its intention, that is carried
        From life and married
To those diviner hours that winged things
        Find with their wings!
O Bird of ruthless song and untold wishes,
        Whose high flight reaches
Heights not of earth, but of pure air, encumbered
        With no joys weighed and numbered!
Take all my heart in thy purpose of going
        And make the flowing
Down to earth of my song be like thy song,
        Something strange, strong
With distance, eerily half‑perishing
        From farness! Sing,
And let my heart be what thou meanst with singings
        My life with winging.
My hopes and fears with th’tone wherewith thy note
        To me doth float
And the great purpose hidden in my fate
        With thy mere height!

My heart shall thus be happy even if pained,
        Free even if strained
To keep that height of joy whence tremble down
        Thy songs to our own.
My soul may thus be happy, full and free.
        Oh, happily
Raise me from me and lift my life unto
        That thou dost woo -
The light, the sky, the distance and the morn,
        Till I be unborn
Again to pure dispersion in the seas
        Of the high breeze
That speaks to thee, ere light be born, of light,
        Till the delight
Of without being being shall make me
        Song and sky be!