This is just one of my favorite things

ESTADOS DE ESPIRITO

Photo: Nicholas Mcalip

ANGUSTIA

Tortura do pensar ! Triste lamento !

Quem nos dera calar a tua voz !

Quem nos dera cá dentro, muito a sós,

Estrangular a hidra num momento!

E não se quer pensar!... e o pensamento

Sempre a morder-nos bem, dentro de nós...

Querer apagar no céu — ó sonho atroz! -

o brilho duma estrela, com o vento! ...

E não e apaga,não... nada se apaga!

Vem sempre rastejando como a vaga.

Vem sempre perguntando : O que te resta?. . .

Ah ! não ser mais que o vago, o infinito!
Ser pedaço de gelo, ser granito,

Ser rugido de tigre na floresta!

Florbela Espanca

Photo: Dennis Olivier

A Meeting With Despair


As evening shaped I found me on a moor
Which sight could scarce sustain:
The black lean land, of featureless contour,
Was like a tract in pain.

"This scene, like my own life," I said, "is one
Where many glooms abide;
Toned by its fortune to a deadly dun--
Lightless on every side.

I glanced aloft and halted, pleasure-caught
To see the contrast there:
The ray-lit clouds gleamed glory; and I thought,
"There's solace everywhere!"

Then bitter self-reproaches as I stood
I dealt me silently
As one perverse--misrepresenting Good
In graceless mutiny.

Against the horizon's dim-descernèd wheel
A form rose, strange of mould:
That he was hideous, hopeless, I could feel
Rather than could behold.

"'Tis a dead spot, where even the light lies spent
To darkness!" croaked the Thing.
"Not if you look aloft!" said I, intent
On my new reasoning.

"Yea--but await awhile!" he cried. "Ho-ho!--
Look now aloft and see!"
I looked. There, too, sat night: Heaven's radiant show
Had gone. Then chuckled he.

Thomas Hardy