There Are Diseases

There are diseases worse, yes, than diseases,
Aches that don't ache even in one's soul
And yet, that are more aching than the others.
There are dreamed anguishes that are more real
Than the ones life brings us, there are sensations
Felt only by imagining
Which are more ours than our life is.
There's so often a thing which, not existing,
Does exist, exists lingeringly
And lingeringly is ours and us.....
Above the cloudy green of the broad river
The white circumflexes of the gulls.....
Above the soul the useless fluttering-
What never was, nor could be, and is everything.

Give me some more wine, because life is nothing.

Fernando Pessoa ( 19.11.35)