Autopsychography - Fernando Pessoa

The poet is a man who feigns
And feigns so thoroughly, at last
He manages to feign as pain
The pain he really feels,

And those who read what once he wrote
Feel clearly, in the pain they read,
Neither of the pains he felt,
Only a pain they cannot sense.

And thus, around its jolting track
There runs, to keep our reason busy,
The circling clockwork train of ours
That men agree to call a heart.

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Fernando António Nogueira Pessoa (Ricardo Reis / Alberto Caeiro / Álvaro de Campos) (1888 - 1935) Portugal
Translated by Edouard Roditi
Source: Poetry Foundation