{
 "id": "fernando-pessoa/inscriptions",
 "title": "Inscriptions",
 "poet": "Fernando Pessoa",
 "poet_slug": "fernando-pessoa",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "English Poems I–II",
 "book_slug": "english-poems-i-ii",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 2,
 "container": "English Poems",
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1921,
  "venue": "English Poems I–II (1921)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/66039"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/fernando-pessoa_poetry",
  "file": "english-poems.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/19978",
   "https://archive.org/details/sonnets00pess",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/66039",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/66040",
   "https://permalinkbnd.bnportugal.gov.pt/records/item/91830-english-poems",
   "http://arquivopessoa.net/textos/1750",
   "https://archive.org/details/p1athenaeum1920lond",
   "http://arquivopessoa.net/textos/1761",
   "https://hemerotecadigital.cm-lisboa.pt/OBRAS/CONTEMPORANEA/1923/N9/N9_item1"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-12"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 62,
  "n_stanzas": 14,
  "n_parts": 14,
  "longest_line_chars": 56,
  "max_indent": 0
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 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [
  {
   "ordinal": "I",
   "title": null,
   "stanza_range": [
    0,
    1
   ]
  },
  {
   "ordinal": "II",
   "title": null,
   "stanza_range": [
    1,
    2
   ]
  },
  {
   "ordinal": "III",
   "title": null,
   "stanza_range": [
    2,
    3
   ]
  },
  {
   "ordinal": "IV",
   "title": null,
   "stanza_range": [
    3,
    4
   ]
  },
  {
   "ordinal": "V",
   "title": null,
   "stanza_range": [
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    5
   ]
  },
  {
   "ordinal": "VI",
   "title": null,
   "stanza_range": [
    5,
    6
   ]
  },
  {
   "ordinal": "VII",
   "title": null,
   "stanza_range": [
    6,
    7
   ]
  },
  {
   "ordinal": "VIII",
   "title": null,
   "stanza_range": [
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    8
   ]
  },
  {
   "ordinal": "IX",
   "title": null,
   "stanza_range": [
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   ]
  },
  {
   "ordinal": "X",
   "title": null,
   "stanza_range": [
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  },
  {
   "ordinal": "XI",
   "title": null,
   "stanza_range": [
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   ]
  },
  {
   "ordinal": "XII",
   "title": null,
   "stanza_range": [
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  },
  {
   "ordinal": "XIII",
   "title": null,
   "stanza_range": [
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   ]
  },
  {
   "ordinal": "XIV",
   "title": null,
   "stanza_range": [
    13,
    14
   ]
  }
 ],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "We pass and dream. Earth smiles. Virtue is rare.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Age, duty, gods weigh on our conscious bliss.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Hope for the best and for the worst prepare.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That sum of purposed wisdom speaks in this.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Me, Chloe, a maid, the mighty fates have given,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who was nought to them, to the peopled shades.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thus the gods will. My years were but twice seven.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I am forgotten in my distant glades.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "From my villa on the hill I long looked down",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Upon the muttering town;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Then one day drew (life sight-sick, dull hope shed)",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "My toga o’er my head",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "(The simplest gesture being the greatest thing)",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Like a raised wing.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Not Cecrops kept my bees. My olives bore",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Oil like the sun. My several herd lowed far.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The breathing traveller rested by my door.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The wet earth smells still; dead my nostrils are.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I conquered. Far barbarians hear my name.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Men were dice in my game,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But to my throw myself did lesser come:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I threw dice, Fate the sum.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Some were as loved, some as prizes prized.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A natural wife to the fed man my mate,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I was sufficient to whom I sufficed.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I moved, slept, bore and aged without a fate.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I put by pleasure like an alien bowl.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Stern, separate, mine, I looked towards where gods seem.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From behind me the common shadow stole.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Dreaming that I slept not, I slept my dream.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Scarce five years passed ere I passed too.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Death came and took the child he found.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "No god spared, or fate smiled at, so",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Small hands, clutching so little round.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "There is a silence where the town was old.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Grass grows where not a memory lies below.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "We that dined loud are sand. The tale is told.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The far hoofs hush. The inn’s last light doth go.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "We, that both lie here, loved. This denies us.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "My lost hand crumbles where her breasts’ lack is.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Love’s known, each lover is anonymous.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "We both felt fair. Kiss, for that was our kiss.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I for my city’s want fought far and fell.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I could not tell",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "What she did want, that knew she wanted me.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Her walls be free,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Her speech keep such as I spoke, and men die,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That she die not, as I.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Life lived us, not we life. We, as bees sip,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Looked, talked and had. Trees grow as we did last.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "We loved the gods but as we see a ship.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Never aware of being aware, we passed.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The work is done. The hammer is laid down.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The artisans, that built the slow-grown town,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Have been succeeded by those who still built.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "All this is something lack-of-something screening.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The thought whole has no meaning",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But lies by Time’s wall like a pitcher spilt.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "This covers me, that erst had the blue sky.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "This soil treads me, that once I trod. My hand",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Put these inscriptions here, half knowing why;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Last, and hence seeing all, of the passing band.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}