Commendable modernist poetry 1

I'm Sorry I Don't Respond

I'm sorry I don't respond
But it isn't, after all, my fault
That I don't correspond
To the other you loved in me.

Each of us in many persons
To me I'm who I think I am,
But others see me differently
And are equally mistaken.

Don't dream me into someone else
But leave me alone, in peace!
If I don't want to find myself,
Should I want others to find me?

-26 January 1930


Poet: Fernando Pessoa
Translator: Richard Zenith

From Fernando Pessoa - Himself, THE MASK BEHIND THE MAN