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by Fernando Pessoa (1888 - 1935)

There are fallen angels in the way you...
Language: English 
Choose for Diff
There are fallen angels in the way you look
        And great bridges over silent streams at your smile.
Your gestures are a lonely princess dreaming over a book
        At a window over a lake, on some distant isle.
 
If I were to stretch my hand and touch yours that would be
        Dawn behind the turrets of a city in some East.
The words hidden in my gesture would be moonlight on the sea
        Of your being something in my soul like gaiety in a feast.
 
Let your silence tell me of the numberless dreams that are you.
        Let the drooping of your eyelids prolong landscapes far away.
The jets of water return on the listening of being untrue
And this is the flower I pluck, with a sound, from what you unsay.
 
Blossoms, blossoms, blossoms along the road of your going to speak.
        Eighteenth century gardens, so sad in the middle of our drearning them now,
Are the way you are conscious of yourself on your eyelids, by your lips, through your cheek.
        A sick child sees the rain blur through the window of what you allow.
 
Do not footfall the silence that is the palace where our consciousness
        Is living at seeing gardens our duplicate lives of one soul.
What are we, in our dream of each other, but a picture which is
        The masterpiece of a painter that never painted at all?

About the headline (FAQ)

Confirmed with Fernando Pessoa., The Mad Fiddler, in: Poesia Inglesa, Organização e tradução de Luísa Freire. Prefácio de Teresa Rita Lopes, Lisboa : Livros Horizonte, 1995, p.388


Text Authorship:

  • by Fernando Pessoa (1888 - 1935), "Her fingers toyed absently with her rings", appears in Poesia Inglesa, in The Mad Fiddler, Lisboa : Imprensa Nacional-Casa da Moeda,, first published 1981 [author's text checked 1 time against a primary source]

Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):

  • by Charlotte Bray (b. 1982), "Silent Streams", 2011, first performed 2011 [ baritone and piano ], from Sonnets and Love Songs, no. 4, Faber
        Publisher: Faber [external link]  [sung text not yet checked]

Researcher for this page: Joost van der Linden [Guest Editor]

This text was added to the website: 2026-08-08
Line count: 20
Word count: 234

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