Sonnet XI.

A poem by Fernando António Nogueira Pessoa

Like to a ship that storms urge on its course,
By its own trials our soul is surer made.
The very things that make the voyage worse
Do make it better; its peril is its aid.
And, as the storm drives from the storm, our heart
Within the peril disimperilled grows;
A port is near the more from port we part--
The port whereto our driven direction goes.
If we reap knowledge to cross-profit, this
From storms we learn, when the storm's height doth drive--
That the black presence of its violence is
The pushing promise of near far blue skies.
Learn we but how to have the pilot-skill,
And the storm's very might shall mate our will.