If I Die Young, By Fernando Pessoa

If I die young,

Without having been able to publish a book,

Without having seen how my verses look in print,

I ask those who would protest on my account

That they not protest.

If so it will have happened, then so it should be.

Even if my verses are never published,

They will have their beauty, if they’re beautiful.

But they cannot be beautiful and remain unpublished,

Because roots may be hidden in the ground

But their flowers flower in the open air for all to see.

It must be so. Nothing can prevent it.

If I die very young, take note:

I was never more than a child who played.

I was pagan like the sun and the water,

With a universal religion that only humans lack.

I was happy because I didn’t ask for anything,

I didn’t try to find anything,

And I didn’t think there was any explanation beyond

The word explanation meaning nothing at all.

I wanted only to be in the sun or in the rain--

In the sun when there was sun

And in the rain when it was raining

(And never in what was not),

To feel warmth and cold and wind,

And to go no further.

Once I loved and thought I’d be loved back,

But I wasn’t loved.

I wasn’t loved for one overwhelming reason:

It wasn’t meant to be.

From “Fernando Pessoa & Co.: Selected Poems,” edited and translated from the Portuguese by Richard Zenith (Grove Press: 290 pp., $25)