Fernando Pessoa, four poems in one

Among the poems in an introductory anthology of Pessoa’s poetry, “Aqui na orla da praia” stands out as particularly dreary and has largely been neglected by critics. Its themes are characteristically Pessoan, and its fifteen-syllable lines are metered and rhymed. However, midway through each line, the seventh syllables also rhyme in a scheme parallel to the end rhyme. This paper demonstrates for the first time that: 1) the poem can be reorganized into ten seven-syllable rhyming quatrains, and 2) the initial seven syllables of each line form an independent five-quatrain poem, as does the second set.