Sonnet - Carlos de Oliveira

I’m accused of being bitter, inclined
to despair, as if my poetry’s pain
weren’t your flesh, O scattered men,
and my sorrow your sorrow, O mind.

Beauty? One day I will sing of it,
when the light I don’t disbelieve in falls
on the dark that hems us in like a wall
and you reach, O joy, your kingdom.

In the meantime let me speak:
let sadness be the revenge I drink
until the wall cracks and the night bursts.

My voice of death is the voice of struggle:
those who, trusting, delve into their suffering,
have a hope whose glory is of higher worth.

Translation from Portuguese by Richard Zenith

Carlos de Oliveira (n. em Belém do Pará, Brazil em 1921; m. em Lisboa a 1 Jul 1981)