Itâs the poet we love in Caeiro, not the philosopher. What we really get from these poems is a childlike sense of life, with all the direct materiality of the childâs mind, and all the vital spirituality of hope and increase that exist in the body and soul of nescient childhood. Caeiroâs work is a dawn that wakes us up and quickens us; a more that material, more than anti-spiritual dawn. Itâs an abstract effect, pure vacuum, nothingness.
I consider a dream like I consider a shadow,â answered Caeiro, with his usual divine, unexpected promptitude. âA shadow is real, but itâs less real than a rock. A dream is real â if it werenât, it wouldnât be a dream â but less real than a thing. Thatâs what being real is like.
If I knew I was going to die tomorrow, And Spring came the day after tomorrow, I would die peacefully, because it came the day after tomorrow. If thatâs its time, when else should it come? I like it that everything is real and everything is right; And I like that it would be like this even if I didnât like it. And so, if I die now, I die peacefully Because everything is real and everything is right.
Accept the universe As the gods gave it to you. If the gods wanted to give you something else Theyâd have done it. If there are other matters and other worlds There are.
Even so, Iâm somebody. Iâm the Discoverer of Nature. Iâm the Argonaut of true sensations. I bring a new Universe to the Universe Because I bring the Universe to itself.
And since todayâs all there is for now, thatâs everything. Who knows if Iâll be dead the day after tomorrow? If Iâm dead the day after tomorrow, the thunderstorm day after tomorrow Will be another thunderstorm than if I hadnât died. Of course I know thunderstorms donât fall because I see them, But if I werenât in the world, The world would be different â There would be me the less â And the thunderstorm would fall on a different world and would be another thunderstorm. No matter what happens, whatâs falling is whatâll be falling when it falls. (7/10/1930)
A stagecoach passed by on the road and went on; And the road didnât become more beautiful or even more ugly. Thatâs human action on the outside world. We take nothing away and we put nothing back, we pass by and we forget; And the sun is always punctual every day. (5/7/14)
Night doesnât fall for my eyes But my idea of the night is that it falls for my eyes. Beyond my thinking and having any thoughts The night falls concretely And the shining of stars exists like it had weight.
There are no roses in my yard: what wind brought you? But I suddenly come from far away. I was sick for a moment. No wind whatsoever brought you now. Now youâre here. What you were isnât you, or else the whole rose would be here.
A kid thinking about fairy tales and believing in fairy tales Acts like a sick god, but like a god. Because even though he affirms that what doesnât exist exists, He knows things exist, that he exists, He knows existing exists and doesnât explain itself, And he knows thereâs no reason at all for anything to exist. He knows being is the point. All he doesnât know is that thought isnât the point. (10/1/1917)
Between what i see in a field and what I see in another field There passes for a moment the figure of a man. His steps go with âhimâ in the same reality, But I look at him and them, and theyâre two things: The âmanâ goes walking with his ideas, false and foreign, And his steps go with the ancient system that makes legs walk. I see him from a distance without any opinion at all. How perfect that he is in him what he is â his body, His true reality which doesnât have desires or hopes, But muscles and the sure and impersonal way of using them.
Praise be to God Iâm not good, And have the natural egotism of flowers And rivers following their bed Preoccupied without knowing it Only with blooming and flowing. This is the only mission in the World, Thisâto exist clearly, And to know how to do it without thinking about it.)
I was born subject like others to errors and defects, But never to the error of wanting to understand too much, Never to the error of wanting to understand only with the intellect.. Never to the defect of demanding of the World That it be anything thatâs not the World.
I think about this, not like someone thinking, but like someone breathing, And I look at flowers and I smile... I donât know if they understand me Or if I understand them, But I know the truth is in them and in me And in our common divinity Of letting ourselves go and live on the Earth And carrying us in our arms through the contented Seasons And letting the wind sing us to sleep And not have dreams in our sleep.