Fernando Pessoa

Portugal
13 Jun 1888 // 30 Nov 1935
Poet

Holding a Dream

The edge of the green wave whitely doth hiss
Upon the wetted sand. I look, yet dream.
Surely reality cannot be this!
Somehow, somewhere this surely doth but seem!
The sky, the sea, this great extent disclosed
Of outward joy, this bulk of life we feel,
Is not something, but something interposed.
Only what in this is not this is real.
If this be to have sense, if to be awake
Be but to see this bright, great sleep of things
For the rarer potion mine own dreams I�ll take
And for truth commune with imaginings,
Holding a dream too bitter, a too fair curse,
This common sleep of men, the universe.

Fernando Pessoa, in 'English Poetry - 35 sonnets'
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