Leaning on the window at dusk, […]

Leaning on the window at dusk,
and perceiving the fields outside from the corner of my sight,
I read until my eyes bleed
The Book of Cesário Verde.

I feel so sorry for him! He was a simple countryman
who walked around the city as if lost in his own freedom.
But the way he looked at houses,
and the way he noticed the streets,
and the way he discovered things,
is the same way one looks at trees,
lowers one’s eyes when walking along a road,
or acknowledges the flowers in the fields...

So he had that deep sadness
he never quite revealed he had,
but he walked in the city as if walking in the fields,
full of sorrow, as if pressing petals between the pages of a book
and putting flowers into jugs...

— Fernando Pessoa [Alberto Caeiro]

Translated by Martin Earl for