On the day we celebrate the poetry...

The state I'm in is so unsteady
I burn with ardor yet shriver with cold,
I laugh while crying, without a reason,
I embrace the whole world and hold nothing.

All that I feel is in confusion;
my soul spews fire, my eyes a river;
I hope one moment, the next I waver;
now I'm lucid, now delirious.

Though bound to earth, I fly up to Heaven;
in a day I find a thousand years
but not in thousand years, one day.

Shoul someone ask why I act this way,
I'll say I don't know, though I suspect
it's only because I saw you, Lady.

poem by Luis de Camões, translated by Richard Zenith