Explore "If that Apparent Part of Life's Delight" by Fernando Pessoa on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
If that apparent part of life's delight
Our tingled flesh-sense circumscribes were seen / By aught save reflex and co-carnal sight, / Joy, flesh and life might prove but a gross screen.
Haply Truth's body is no eyable being, / Appearance even as appearance lies, / Haply our close, dark, vague, warm sense of seeing / Is the choked vision of blindfolded eyes.
Wherefrom what comes to thought's sense of life? Nought.
All is either the irrational world we see / Or some aught-else whose being-unknown doth rot / Its use for our thought's use. Whence taketh me / A qualm-like ache of life, a body-deep / Soul-hate of what we seek and what we weep.