I Am Tired Poem by Fernando Pessoa

I Am Tired

Rating: 4.5


I am tired, that is clear,
Because, at certain stage, people have to be tired.
Of what I am tired, I don't know:
It would not serve me at all to know
Since the tiredness stays just the same.
The wound hurts as it hurts
And not in function of the cause that produced it.
Yes, I am tired,
And ever so slightly smiling
At the tiredness being only this -
In the body a wish for sleep,
In the soul a desire for not thinking
And, to crown all, a luminous transparency
Of the retrospective understanding…
And the one luxury of not now having hopes?
I am intelligent: that's all.
I have seen much and understood much of what I
have seen.
And there is a certain pleasure even in tiredness
this brings us,
That in the end the head does still serve for
something.

COMMENTS OF THE POEM
Hello 08 April 2019

Hello, my name is hello, and hello is my name.

0 0 Reply
Fabrizio Frosini 04 January 2016

Most of his poems whether written under his own name or his heteronyms were published in literary magazines. He only published four compiled books of poems, three of which were in English and only one in Portuguese. He also wrote short essays, several of which remained unfinished. His first book was published in 1918. Pessoa died at the age of forty seven in the year 1935. He left behind a legacy of heavy burden on the shoulders of publishers to edit his huge unfinished and unpublished work. This includes twenty five thousand pages of typed and manuscript pages. He is remembered as the most celebrated Portuguese poet. It is often said that the four greatest Portuguese poets of modern times are Fernando Pessoa.

13 1 Reply
Chinedu Dike 12 December 2015

Beautiful train of thought, well articulated and nicely penned in poetic diction with conviction. I like the expression: - '...luminous transparency of retrospective understanding'.

2 3 Reply
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