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)
If I could take a bite of the whole world And feel it on my palate Iâd be more happy for a minute or so... But I donât always want to be happy. Sometimes you have to be Unhappy to be natural... Not every day is sunny. When thereâs been no rain for a while, you pray for it to come. So I take unhappiness with happiness Naturally, like someone who doesnât find it strange That there are mountains and plains And that there are cliffs and grass... What you need is to be natural and calm In happiness and in unhappiness, To feel like someone seeing, To think like someone walking, And when itâs time to die, remember the day dies, And the sunset is beautiful, and the endless night is beautiful... Thatâs how it is and thatâs how it should be...
Live, you say, in the present; Live only in the present. But I donât want the present, I want reality; I want things that exist, not time that measures them. What is the present? Itâs something relative to the past and the future. Itâs a thing that exists in virtue of other things existing. I only want reality, things without the present. I donât want to include time in my scheme. I donât want to think about things as present; I want to think of them as things. I donât want to separate them from themselves, treating them as present. I shouldnât even treat them as real. I should treat them as nothing. I should see them, only see them; See them till I canât think about them. See them without time, without space, To see, dispensing with everything but what you see. And this is the science of seeing, which isnât a science.
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.
I donât always feel what I know I should feel. My thought crosses the river I swim very slowly Because the suit men made it wear weighs it down.
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.