My Soul is a Stiff Pageant by Fernando Pessoa

My soul is a stiff pageant, man by man,

Of some Egyptian art than Egypt older, / Found in some tomb whose rite no guess can scan, / Where all things else to coloured dust did moulder.

Whate'er its sense may mean, its age is twin / To that of priesthoods whose feet stood near God, / When knowledge was so great that 'twas a sin / And man's mere soul too man for its abode.

But when I ask what means that pageant I

And would look at it suddenly, I lose / The sense I had of seeing it, nor can try / Again to look, nor hath my memory a use / That seems recalling, save that it recalls / An emptiness of having seen those walls.