Ah, open my eyes to another reality!

Ah, open my eyes to another reality!
I want to feel, like Blake, the angels all around me
And to have visions for lunch.
I want to meet fairies in the street!
I want to forget I’m of this world made with claws,
This civilization made with nails.
I want to live like a flag in the breeze,
A symbol of whatever on top of wherever!

Then you can lock me up where you like.
My true heart will continue to keep watch
From atop the flagpole of visions,
A cloth emblazoned with sphinxes
Flapping in the four winds of Mystery:
The North ­— what everyone wants,
The South — what everyone desires,
The East — where everything comes from,
The West — where everything ends.
The four winds of civilization’s mystical air...
The four ways of not knowing, and of understanding the world...

4 April 1929

PESSOA, Fernando, Forever Someone Else: selected poems, translated by Richard Zenith. Lisboa: Assírio & Alvim, 2013, p. 197