Florbela Espanca: Her Legacy, Works, and the Power of Her Timeless Poetry

Her erotic poetry and private life, viewed by many as immoral, marked her as a sworn enemy of the conservative values of traditional Portugal.

Deemed decadent in her works and life, Espanca shocked the bourgeoisie of Porto and the small town of Matosinhos, where she lived after returning from Lisbon. Many who had neither read her books nor known her personally considered her a threat to public decency and a terrifying example of a younger generation's lack of restraint.

Poets and connoisseurs of contemporary literature, however, began to read and admire her books and viewed her erotic poetry as breaking new ground in understanding the human experience. Some of Portugal's small contingent of feminists were impressed by the intensity and clarity of her writings, seeing her as a writer determined to directly address the challenges of being a woman and an artist in a society hostile to women's rights and the idea of artistic freedom.

In 1930, she married for a third time, still searching for happiness and stability in her personal life, and was busy preparing two manuscripts of poetry and short stories for publication when she died by suicide in Matosinhos on December 7, 1930. She passed away following an overdose of barbiturates on the eve of her 36th birthday.

To my dearest man,

I drink Life, Life, in long draughts

Like a divine Falernian wine!

Resting on you my eternal love

As leaves rest upon the lakes...

My dreams are now more vague...

Your gaze upon me, today, is more tender...

And Life is no longer the crimson hell

Full of sad and foreboding phantoms!

Life, my Love, wants to live it!

From the same cup raised in your hands,

With united mouths, we shall drink from it!

What matter the world and defunct illusions?...

What matter the world and its vain prides?...

The world, my Love?... Our mouths together!...

It is a pure and beautiful night. I open my window

And gaze sighing at the infinite sky,

I softly dream of many beautiful things

I think of you and of this love that is yours!

With closed eyes I dream. The night is an elegy

Softly singing a dream born of the soul

And while the white moon unravels good linen

I feel souls passing in the beautiful and calm night.

Here comes yours now... In a mad rush

So close it passed, so close to my mouth

In that wild, strange, and capricious rush

That my captive soul trembles, flutters

To follow yours, like a rose petal

Follows the breeze that kisses it... and your soul passes!...

SELECTED POEMS

To Love
I want to love, to love madly!
To love just for loving: Here... beyond...
This one and That one, the Other and everyone...
To love! To love! And to love no one!
Remember? Forget? Indifferent!...
To hold or to let go? Is it wrong? Is it right?
Whoever says one can love someone
For an entire life, truly lies!
There is a Spring in every life:
It must be sung so flowered,
For if God gave us voice, it was to sing!
And if one day I am to be dust, ash, and nothing
May my night be a dawn,
May I know how to lose myself... to find myself...

Fanaticism
My soul, from dreaming of you, is lost. 
My eyes are blind from seeing you! 
You are not even the reason for my living,
For you are already my whole life! 
 
I see nothing, thus maddened... 
I pass through the world, my Love, reading
In the mysterious book of your being
The same story read so many times! 
 
“Everything in the world is fragile, everything passes... ”
When they tell me this, all the grace
Of a divine mouth speaks within me! 
And, with eyes fixed on you, I say, crawling:
“Ah! Worlds may fly, stars may die,
For you are like God: Beginning and End! ... ”

Smoke
Far from you, the paths are desolate,
Far from you, there is no moonlight nor roses;
Far from you, there are silent nights,
There are days without warmth, eaves without nests!
My eyes are two poor old souls
Lost through the wintry nights...
Open, they dream of caressing hands,
Your sweet hands full of tenderness!
The days are Autumns: they weep... they weep...
There are purple chrysanthemums that fade...
There are plaintive murmurs of secrets...
I invoke our dream! I stretch out my arms!
And it is, oh my love through the spaces,
Light smoke that escapes between my fingers...

Our World
To my dearest man,
I drink Life, Life, in long draughts
Like a divine Falernian wine!
Resting on you my eternal love
As leaves rest upon the lakes...
My dreams are now more vague...
Your gaze upon me, today, is more tender...
And Life is no longer the crimson hell
Full of sad and foreboding phantoms!
Life, my Love, wants to live it!
From the same cup raised in your hands,
With united mouths, we shall drink from it!
What matter the world and defunct illusions?...
What matter the world and its vain prides?...
The world, my Love?... Our mouths together!...

To Be a Poet
To be a poet is to be taller, to be greater
Than men! To bite as one who kisses!
It is to be a beggar and give as one who is
King of the Kingdom of This Side and Beyond Pain!
It is to have the splendor of a thousand desires
And not even know what one desires!<
It is to have a star that flames within,
It is to have claws and wings of a condor!
It is to hunger, it is to thirst for the Infinite!
For a helmet, mornings of gold and satin...
It is to condense the world into a single cry!
And it is to love you, so madly...
It is to be soul, and blood, and life in me
And to sing it to everyone!

Dreaming
It is a pure and beautiful night. I open my window
And gaze sighing at the infinite sky,
I softly dream of many beautiful things
I think of you and of this love that is yours!
With closed eyes I dream. The night is an elegy
Softly singing a dream born of the soul
And while the white moon unravels good linen
I feel souls passing in the beautiful and calm night.
Here comes yours now... In a mad rush
So close it passed, so close to my mouth
In that wild, strange, and capricious rush
That my captive soul trembles, flutters
To follow yours, like a rose petal
Follows the breeze that kisses it... and your soul passes!...