SONNET XI

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 the 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.

Fernando Pessoa (1888–1935)

from English Poems (1921)