This is just one of my favorite things

SER

OUTRO
Passo triste no mundo, alheio ao mundo.
Passo no mundo alheio, sem o ver,
É, místico, ideal e vagabundo,
Sinto erguer-se minh’Alma do profundo
Abismo do meu Ser.

Vivo de Mim em Mim e para Mim
E para Deus em Mim ressuscitado.
Sou Saudade do Longe d’onde vim,
E sou Ãnsia do Longe em que por fim
Serei transfigurado.

Vivo de Deus, em Deus e para Deus,
E minha ’Alma, sonâmbula esquecida,
N’Ele fitando os tristes olhos seus
Passa triste e sozinha olhando os céus
No caminho da Vida.

Fui Outro e, Outro sendo, Outro serei,
Outro vivendo e mística beleza
Por esta humana forma que encarnei,
Por lágrimas de sangue que chorei
Na terra de tristeza.

Espiríto na Dor puxificado,
Ser que passa no mundo sem a ver.
Em esta pobre terra de pecado
Amor divino em Deus extasiado.
o meu Ser é Nào-ser em Outro-ser

Ronaldo de carvalho
Lisboa
1914
in Orpheu 1

The Happiness of Also Refusing Happiness

The happiness of refusing happiness

The joy of refusing joy

Passionately keeping passion back

Proudly breaking pride in ecstasy.

Night in the forest on trouble’s path

All rustling has become one tree

One secret calling cry for help

One star glowing, a small eye.

What’s sense here? I don’t know why--

Still walking, now I’m at the door

Chaos behind. The door’s a lamp

Inside the cry of help before.

The mussar house inside of me

Murmurs, mirage of childhood awe

Yellow the lamp above the door

Faces parchment ecstatic glow

They’re putting it out.

All kinds of cryIn black dispersed.

Wings’ heat unloosed

Cry of pain exalted sings

I am on fire, and in terror: frost

The mussar songs of distant past

Which years-long awed me radiant

My whole life’s warring with myself

Winning, I’m lost in forest chant.

Light’s out. Again dark radiates

The mussar song, pained ecstasy

The happiness of refusing happiness

And the joy of also refusing joy.

Original Yiddish poem

Mussar: Jewish religious-ethical movement, beginning in nineteenth-century Eastern Europe, stressing rigorous self-examination and purification of motives in the service of God.