Unto our very selves we are abridged

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Whether we write or speak or do but look 

We are ever unapparent. What we are 

Cannot be transfused into word or book. 

Our soul from us is infinitely far. 

However much we give our thoughts the will 

To be our soul and gesture it abroad, 

Our hearts are incommunicable still. 

In what we show ourselves we are ignored. 

The abyss from soul to soul cannot be bridged 

By any skill of thought or trick of seeming. 

Unto our very selves we are abridged 

When we would utter to our thought our being. 

We are our dreams of ourselves, souls by gleams, 

And each to each other dreams of others’ dreams.

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~ Fernando Pessoa 

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