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XXIV

Something in me was born before the stars

And saw the sun begin from far away.

Our yellow, local day on its wont jars,

For it hath communed with an absolute day.

Through my Throught's night, as a worn robe's heard trail

That I have never seen, I drag this past

That saw the Possible like a dawn grow pale

On the lost night before it, mute and vast.

It dates remoter than God's birth can reach,

That had no birth but the world's coming after.

So the world's to me as, after whispered speech,

The cause-ignored sudden echoing of laughter.

That's has a meaning my conjecture knows,

But that's has meaning's all it meaning shows.



Fernando Pessoa
in poemas ingleses

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