[1] His work, while mostly ignored during his lifetime and not well known outside of the country's borders even today, is generally considered to be amongst the most important in Portuguese poetry and is widely taught in schools.

In 1857, an outbreak of the plague lead his father to permanently move the family to the country, where they lived until coming back to Lisbon in 1865.

This early contact with the countryside instilled in Verde a deep love of nature, which would show up repeatedly in his poems about life in the country, almost always depicted in a bucolic, idyllic light.

In 1872, his sister Julia died of tuberculosis – the grief over this loss is considered by many critics to have had a big impact on his literary work, as his poems frequently deal with the sickly, often portrayed in the guise of beautiful, innocent women.

In 1874, he published the poem “Esplêndida”, which garnered him a negative review by the noted Portuguese critic and social commentator Ramalho Ortigão.

This deeply hurt Verde, who in fact during his lifetime would frequently complain about the indifference which greeted his work – though he and Ortigão would later become friends.

Cesário Verde is frequently hailed as both one of Portugal's finest urban poets and one of the country's greatest describers of the countryside.

Even the growing industrialization of agriculture isn't seen as a worrying factor, as this passage from “De Verão” (“In The Summer”) shows: “E perguntavas sobre os últimos inventos Agrícolas.

Olha: os saloios vivos, corpulentos Como nos fazem grandes barretadas” (“And you asked about the latest inventions In agriculture.

Whilst in his “city” poems Verde describes spleen and disease, in his descriptions of the countryside the protagonists are often strong, happy and robust.

More modern admirers include Eugénio de Andrade and Adolfo Casais Monteiro During his lifetime, Cesário Verde published around forty poems in various papers.