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PABLO NERUDA
TWENTY LOVE POEMS
and
The Song of Despair
1 Female body, white thighs, pale
uplands
2
Within its mortal flame the light enclothes you
3
Ah vastness of pines, murmur of waves cascading
4
In the heart of summer
5
So
that you may hear me
6
I remember you as in that final autumn
7
Leaning into afternoons I throw sad nets
8
Drunk on honey, white bee, you buzz in my soul
9
Drunk on turpentine and long kisses 10
We have lost even this nightfall
11
Almost beyond the sky, between two mountains 12
Your breast suffices my heart
13
I have been marking with crosses of fire 14
You play every day with the light of the universe
15
I
enjoy it when you are quiet, it’s as if you’re not here 16
In my sky at dusk you are like a cloud 17
Pondering, confusing shadows in deep
isolation 18
Here I love you 19
Agile tanned girl, the sun that forms fruit 20
Tonight I can write the saddest lines
The
Song of Despair
1.
Female
body, white thighs, pale uplands,
you
could pass for the world itself, feigning submission.
My
brutal farmhand’s body undermines you
and
makes a man-child leap up from earth’s womb.
I
was like a tunnel, so empty that the birds fled from me
and
night invaded, overpoweringly.
To
outlive myself I forged you as a weapon,
my
archer’s arrow, a rock for my catapult.
But
now comes the hour of revenge: I have fallen for you!
Body
of skin, of moss, of steady and insistent milk…
Oh
these breasts, vases! And your eyes, full of absence!
Oh
the vaginal rose! And your voice, slow and melancholy!
Body,
my woman, I will keep myself in your favour.
My
thirst, my boundless desire, my unknown path!
Shady
riverbed where thirst endlessly wanders,
where
weariness wanders, and also infinite pain.
(translated
by Alan Marshfield)
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2.
Within
its mortal flame the light enclothes you.
Engrossed:
pale mourner, placed just so
against
the ancient weather-vanes of twilight
that
whirl and whirl about you.
Dumb,
my love:
alone
in the emptiness of this hour of the dead
yet
replete with lives of fire,
pure
heiress of the day that lies in ruins.
A
bunch of sunshine falls on your dark dress.
The
great roots of the night
twist
violently in your soul,
and
things hidden in you re-emerge to the outside.
The
outcome: a new-born race, pale
and
blue, that is suckled by you.
Oh
magnificent and fruitful and magnetic slave
of
the circle that is successively black and gold:
uprisen,
treat and perfect a creation so alive
that
its flowers wither and it is full of sorrow.
(translated
by Alan Marshfield)
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3.
Ah
vastness of pines, murmur of waves cascading,
slow
play of lights, solitary church bell,
day’s
end descending within your eyes, pretty doll,
conch
dug from earth in which earth does its singing.
In
you the rivers sing and my soul escapes upon them
just
as your wish is, and to where you desire.
Mark
my path out for me with your bow of hope,
and
deliriously I will release a bevy of arrows.
All
I see round me is your bare waist, a fog,
and
your silences harass my hours, tormented;
with
arms of transparent stone you are where
my
moist yearning dwells and my kisses anchor.
Ah
your mysterious voice, pealing and suffused
with
love, in the resonant and dying dusk!
Just
so, in the deep hours, across fields, I have seen
flower-fronds
rocking in the jaws of the wind.
(translated
by Alan Marshfield)
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4.
In
the heart of summer
the
morning is full of storms.
Clouds
travel like white handkerchiefs of goodbye:
The
wind with travelling hands is waving them.
Wind
with incalculable heart
throbbing
above our amorous silence.
Humming
among the trees, orchestral, divine,
like
a tongue full of songs and war.
Wind
which lifts the dead leaves with swift heist
and
deflects the birds, pulsating arrows.
Wind
like a wave, cascading without spray,
a
substance with no weight, a slant fire.
Her
voluminous kisses break and submerge
and
grapple at the gate of the summer’s wind.
(translated
by Alan Marshfield)
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5.
So
that you may hear me
my
words
sometimes
become lighter
like
the traces of gulls in wet sand.
Necklace,
a drunken bell
for
your hands smooth as grapes.
My
words: I look upon them, distant.
They
are more yours than mine.
They
are like ivy, climbing my long-standing pain.
They
climb thus up the damp walls.
For
this bloodthirsty sport you are guilty.
They
run from my dark retreat.
You
fill all, you fill everything.
Once
they populated the solitude that you now abide in.
They
are more accustomed to my suffering than you are.
I
want them now to say what I wish to tell you
so
that you hear me as I want to be heard.
As
usual, the wind of distress still draws them out.
Hurricanes
of dream still bowl them over.
In
my pained voice you listen to other voices,
the
wailing of ancient mouths, blood of old entreaties.
Love
me, dear comrade. Do not abandon me. Follow.
Follow
me, comrade, on this crest of pain.
But
your love always stains my words.
You
occupy everything, you occupy all.
I
am making them all into an infinite necklace
for
your white hands, smooth as grapes.
(translated
by Alan Marshfield)
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6.
I
remember you as in that final autumn.
You
were grey beret and calm heart.
In
your eyes rippled the flames of twilight.
Into
the water of your soul fell the leaves.
Fast
in my arms like a creeper:
the
leaves gathered up your voice, slow, calm.
Bonfire
of wonder within which my thirst was blazing.
Sweet
blue hyacinth curving over my soul.
I
feel your eyes travel, remote the autumn—
grey
beret, bird-voice, heart of a house
towards
which, émigrés, my acute desires
and
kisses fell, delighted as embers.
Sky
from a ship, field seen from the hills.
You
remember light, and smoke, and a still pond!
Beyond
your eyes the evenings were on fire.
In
your soul dry autumn leaves were spinning.
(translated
by Alan Marshfield)
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7.
Leaning
into afternoons I throw sad nets
into
your eyes, oceanic.
There
my floundering solitude, twisting its arms,
strains
high, burning at the stake.
Before
your blank eyes which wave like the sea
beside
a lighthouse I make red signs.
Female,
remote and yet mine, you store only darkness:
sometimes
from your look emerges a coastline of horror.
Leaning
into afternoons I cast sad nets
into
that sea which disturbs your eyes, oceanic.
Nocturnal
birds peck at the early stars;
they
sparkle like my soul and I love you.
The
night gallops on a dark mare
spreading
blue fronds on the landscape.
(translated
by Alan Marshfield)
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8.
Drunk
on honey, white bee, you buzz in my soul
and
twist in slow spirals of smoke.
I
am despair, I am speech without echo,
I
am he who lost all and once had everything.
Last
cable, you creak my final yearning.
In
my waste land you are the final rose.
Ah…,
silent woman!
Close
your deep eyes where night’s wing flutters.
Ah,
naked!—body of a frightened statue!
You
have deep eyes which are blended with the night.
Arms
cools as flowers. Rose of the loins.
Your
breasts are like white conches.
A
shadowy butterfly comes and sleeps on your womb.
Ah…,
silent woman!
Here
a solitude where you are absent.
Rain.
A sea wind hunting stray gulls.
Water
walks barefoot through wet streets.
From
one tree the leaves groan as if they are ill.
In
my soul, white bee, you buzz still, though absent.
You
are alive, within time again, quiet and slender.
Ah…,
silent woman!
(translated
by Alan Marshfield)
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9.
Drunk
on turpentine and long kisses,
founded
upon a solid sea frenzy,
I
pilot a summer sailboat of roses,
steering
towards the death of a slender day.
Pale
and moored to a devouring sea,
I
cross the sour odour of open weather
still
clothed in grey and bitter sounds
and
a sad crest of abandoned foam.
Tough
in passion, I ride on my sole wave,
lunar,
solar, hot and cold and sudden,
asleep
in the ravine of the fortunate
isles,
white and sweet like fresh thighs.
My
robe of kisses shudders in the wet
night,
charged with electrical acts,
in
heroic fashion split up into dreams
with
heady roses practising upon me.
In
upstream waters, amidst oncoming waves,
your
parallel body holds on to my arms
like
a fish infinitely fastened to my soul
in
sub-celestial energy, swift and slow.
(translated
by Alan Marshfield)
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10.
We
have lost even this nightfall.
No
one saw us holding hands tonight
as
the blue evening fell upon the world.
I’ve
seen from my window
the
fiesta of the westering sun in far-away hills.
Sometimes
like a coin
a
piece of sun burned in my hands.
I
remembered you with my soul gripped by
that
sadness you know me for.
Where
were you, anyway?
With
whom?
Murmuring
what words?
Why
will the whole of love so suddenly come upon me
when
I’m feeling low, feeling your far-offness?
The
book fell that I always turn to at nightfall,
and,
like a wounded dog, my cloak rolled at my feet.
Always,
always you distance yourself in the evenings
to
where the nightfall spreads farther, erasing statues.
(translated
by Alan Marshfield)
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11.
Almost
beyond the sky, between two mountains
a
half-moon is anchored.
Revolving
night, wanderer, excavator of eyes.
Let
us see what stars are crushed in the pond.
A
crucifix of lament fixes between my brows, skedaddles.
Forge
of blue metals, night-times of silent struggles,
my
heart spins like a mad steering wheel.
Girl,
arrived from afar, brought from afar,
sometimes
your look spreads lightning beneath the clouds.
Tempest,
whirlwind of vehemence, howling,
you
cross my heart but you do not stop there.
A
sepulchral wind takes, wrecks, disperses your sleeping root.
Uproot
those great trees on the other side of her!
But
you, girl, question in smoke, flower-frond, radiant,
were
what the wind was shaping with illumined leaves.
Behind
the night mountains, white incendiary lily—
oh,
I have not the words! You were made of all things.
So,
desire that has ripped my breast with your stabbing,
it
is time you took another road, one where she has not smiled.
Tempest
that has buried bells, murky seething of torments,
why
touch her now, why make her unhappy?
Oh,
to take the road away from it all,
where
anguish, death, winter does not block the way
with
eyes alert in the dew!
(translated
by Alan Marshfield)
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12.
Your
breast suffices my heart;
for
your freedom my wings will suffice.
What
was drowsing above your soul
will
rise from my lips to heaven.
In
you is every day’s illusion.
You
arrive as dew comes to corollas.
Your
absence undermines horizons.
Like
a wave eternally escaping.
I’ve
said you have sung in the wind
like
pines, like ship masts.
You
are, like them, tall, taciturn,
and
you sadden, maybe, like a journey.
Cosy,
like an old avenue.
Echoes
and nostalgic voices populate you.
I
awoke, and at times birds that had slept
in
your soul migrated and escaped.
(translated
by Alan Marshfield)
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13.
I
have been marking with crosses of fire
the
white atlas of your body.
My
mouth was a spider traversing you, hiding itself.
In
you, behind you, thirsty and apprehensive.
Such
stories to tell you on the shores of twilight,
sad,
gentle rag doll, so that you should not be sad.
A
swan, a tree, a thing distant and happy.
Mature
season of grapes, the fruit season.
I
who lived in a port from which I loved you.
Solitude
crossed with dream and silence.
Trapped
between sea and sadness.
Silent,
feverish, between two static gondoliers.
Between
lips and voice something is dying.
Something
with bird-wings, something of anguish and coma.
The
way that nets do not hold water.
My
rag doll, only a few beads remain, trembling.
However,
something sings in these ephemeral words.
Something
sings, something rises to my dry lips.
Oh
to celebrate you with the entire language of bliss!
To
sing, burn, disappear, like a belfry in the hands of a madman.
My
sad compassion, what suddenly is going on?
When
I have reached the boldest and coldest peak
my
heart closes like a night flower.
(translated
by Alan Marshfield)
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14.
You
play every day with the light of the universe.
Subtle
inspector, you reach into water and flowers.
You
are more than this little white head that I press
like
a cluster between my hands every day.
You
are like no one so long as I love you.
Let
me lay you out among yellow garlands.
Who
writes your name in letters of smoke in the southern stars?
Oh
let me remember you as you were then, when you did not even exist.
Suddenly
the wind howls and beats at my closed window.
The
sky is a net crammed with funereal fish.
It
happens that here all the winds break out, all of them.
Birds
pass, escaping.
The
rain takes off her clothes.
The
wind. The wind.
Only
I can fight against the power of men.
The
storm swirls dark leaves
and
unties all the boats which last night were moored to the sky.
You
are here. Oh, you do not run off.
Unto
the very last cry you will answer me.
Curl
up beside me as if you were scared.
There
have been times, all the same, when a strange shadow ran through your
eyes.
Now
also, now, little one, you bring me honeysuckle
and
you are scented unto your breasts.
While
the sad wind gallops slaughtering butterflies
I
love you, and my joy bites the plum of your mouth.
How
much it must have hurt to get used to me,
to
my lonely and savage soul, to my name which scares them all off.
We
have seen so many times the brightest star burn, kissing our eyes,
and
over our heads the dawn light uncoil in spinning fans.
My
words rained over you, caressing.
Long
have I loved your nacreous and sunny body.
I
even think that you own the universe.
From
the mountains I’ll bring you happy blossoms, bell-flowers,
dark
hazelnuts and woodland baskets of kisses.
I
want to do with you
what
the spring does with the cherry trees.
(translated
by Alan Marshfield)
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15.
I
enjoy it when you are quiet, it’s as if you’re not here
but
hear me from far off—my voice does not touch you.
It’s
as if your eyes too had hurried away,
and
it looks as though a kiss had closed your lips.
Just
as my soul fills all things
so
you emerge from things, full of my soul.
Butterfly
of dream, you are like my soul,
like
the word melancholy.
I
enjoy it when you are quiet and seem distant.
It’s
as if you moan, a butterfly lullabying.
You
hear me from far off, my voice does not catch you:
Let
me, in your silence, be soundless.
Let
me speak to you with your silence,
which
is bright as a lamp, as pure as a ring.
You
are like the night, hushed and constellated.
Your
silence is a star’s silence, distant and unassuming.
I
enjoy it when you are quiet, it’s as if you’re not here.
Remote
and sorrowful as though you had died.
One
word then, one smile: that’s enough.
And
I am happy—happy this isn’t true.
(translated
by Alan Marshfield)
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16.
This poem is a paraphrase of Poem 30
in Rabindranath Tagore’s The Gardener.
In
my sky at dusk you are like a cloud:
your
colour and form are the way I love them.
You
are mine, sweet-lipped woman, you are mine,
and
in you exist my infinite dreams.
The
lamp of my soul incarnadines your feet,
on
your lips my bitter wine is sweeter.
Oh
harvester of my evening song,
how
my lonely dreams feel you mine!
Mine,
mine, I go calling in the afternoon breeze,
and
the wind carries away my widowed speech.
Hunter
of the deeps of my eyes, your quarry
dams
up your night gaze as if it were water.
You
are prey in the net of my music, my love,
and
my nets of music are as wide as the sky.
My
soul is born on the beach of your mournful eyes.
In
your mournful eyes commences the country of dreams.
(translated
by Alan Marshfield)
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17.
Pondering,
confusing shadows in deep isolation.
You
are distant too, oh farther than anyone!
Pondering,
releasing birds, blurring images, interring lanterns.
Bell-tower
of fogs, how remote, way up there!
Choking
laments, grinding vague hopes, gloomy miller,
night
collapses face down on you, far from the city.
Your
presence is alien, strange to me as a thing.
I
ponder, I go over at length, my life before you.
My
life before anyone, my hard life.
The
cry confronting the sea, among rocks,
running
free and crazy in the sea’s vapour.
The
sad fury, the cry, the loneliness of the sea.
Bolting,
violent, outstretched towards the sky.
You,
woman, what were you there, what manta ray, what blade
of
that immense fan? You were as distant as now.
Fire
in the forest! Burn in blue crosses!
Burn,
blaze, burn in trees of light, spit out sparks!
It
crackles and collapses…. Fire! Fire!
And
my soul dances, maimed by shavings of fire.
Who
calls? What silence populated with echoes?
Hour
of nostalgia, hour of joy, hour of loneliness,
my
hour from the rest!
Horn
through which the wind passes its song.
Such
a passion of weeping knotted in my body.
All
the roots jerk,
all
the waves attack!
Endlessly,
happy, sad, my soul tottered on.
Pondering,
interring lamps in deep isolation.
Who
are you? Who?
(translated
by Alan Marshfield)
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18.
Here
I love you.
Among
dark pines the wind untangles.
The
moon phosphoresces above wayfaring waters.
The
days are all alike, following one on another.
The
snow unwinds in balletic figures.
A
silvery gull breaks off in the sunset.
At
times a sail. Stars on high, on high.
Or
the black cross of a ship.
Alone.
At
times I wake at dawn and even my soul is damp.
The
sea sounds and resounds, far off.
This
is a harbour.
Here
I love you.
Here
I love you and in vain the horizon conceals you.
Amidst
the cold things here I’m in love with you still.
At
times my kisses go in deep ships
which
move on a sea to where no one arrives.
Already
I see myself like those ancient anchors.
The
wharfs are sadder when the afternoon docks.
My
life wearies, uselessly famished.
I
love what I don’t have. You are so remote.
Tedium
struggles with my slow evenings.
But
night arrives and begins to sing.
The
moon turns its projector of dream.
The
biggest stars watch me with your eyes.
And
as I love you the pines in the wind
want
to sing your name with their leaves of wire.
(translated
by Alan Marshfield)
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19.
Agile
tanned girl, the sun that forms fruit,
brings
on the grain and puckers seaweed,
made
your body, jubilant, and your bright eyes,
and
your mouth, smiling like water.
A
black and passionate sun coils in the threads
of
your black mane when you stretch out your arms.
You
play with the sun as with a stream.
It
leaves in your eyes two dark pools.
Agile
brown girl, nothing brings me near you.
Everything
carries me from you, as if from noontide.
You
are the hot juvenescence of the bee,
the
euphoria of waves, the force in the frond.
My
gloomy heart searches for you, however.
I
love your ecstatic body, your thin fluid voice.
Brown
butterfly, sweet and final
like
wheat and the sun, the poppy, water.
(translated
by Alan Marshfield)
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20.
Tonight
I can write the saddest lines.
Write,
for example, ‘The night is starry,
and
the stars tremble blue in the distance.’
The
night wind circles and intones above me.
Tonight
I can write the saddest lines.
I
loved her and at times she loved me also.
On
nights like this I took her in my arms.
So
many times we kissed beneath the infinite sky.
She
loved me and at times I loved her also.
How
could I not have loved her big intent stare?
Tonight
I can write the saddest lines.
To
think I do not have her. To feel what I have lost.
To
hear the vast night, more immense without her.
The
poem drops on my soul like dew on the grass.
What
matter that my love could not keep her?
The
night is starry and she is not with me.
This
is all. Far away someone sings. Far off.
My
soul is not pleased to have lost her.
As
if to bring her nearer my eyes search for her.
My
heart searches for her. She is not here.
The
same night. Making the same trees white.
We
of those days are not the same any more.
I
love her no more, that is certain. How I loved her!
My
voice searched for the wind to touch her hearing.
Another’s.
She will be another’s. Like before I kissed her.
Her
voice, her luminous body, her infinite eyes.
I
love her no more, that is certain. Perhaps I do love her.
Love
is so short. Oblivion so long.
My
soul is not pleased to have lost her:
on
nights like this I held her in my arms.
Still,
this is the last pain she will cause me,
these
the last lines I will write her.
(translated
by Alan Marshfield)
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note
The
Song of Despair
From
the night I am in emerges the memory of you.
The
river tethers to the sea a dogged lament.
Bereft
like wharves in the dawn.
Bereft,
it is time to leave.
Over
my heart rain cold corollas of flowers.
Oh
sink of rubble, ferocious cave of the shipwrecked.
In
you wars and flights have accumulated.
From
you the songbirds have taken wing.
The
lot: you swallowed the lot, like the far distance.
Like
the sea, like time. Everything in you was shipwreck.
It
was the happy hour of assault and kisses.
The
amazing hour which blazed like a lighthouse.
Ship-pilot’s
unease, blind diver’s anger,
turbulent
rapture of love, everything in you was shipwreck.
In
the infancy of mist my soul was swift-winged and injured.
Lost
explorer, everything in you was shipwreck.
You
girded on sorrow, you were sick with desire.
Sadness
destroyed you, everything in you was shipwreck.
I
caused the wall of shadow to withdraw,
I
moved beyond desire and action.
Oh
flesh, my flesh, woman I loved and lost,
in
this moist hour I invoke you, make music for you.
Like
a wineglass you made a room for infinite kindness,
and
infinite oblivion fractured you like a wineglass.
There
was this black, black loneliness of islands,
and
therein, love-woman, your arms gave me refuge.
There
were thirst and hunger, and you were fruit.
There
were sadness and ruin, and you were a miracle.
Ah
woman, I know not how you could contain me
in
the soil of your soul, in the cross of your arms!
My
desire for you was most terrible and brief,
most
restless and drunk, most terribly strained and eager.
Graveyard
of kisses, there is still fire in your tombs,
the
fruit clusters burn still, pecked by the birds.
Oh
the bitten mouth, the kissed body-parts,
oh
the hungering teeth, oh the enwoven bodies.
Oh
the mad copulation of hope and effort
in
which we knotted together and despaired.
And
the tenderness, gentle as water, or flour.
And
the word scarcely begun on the lips.
This
was my destiny, and in it travelled my yearning,
and
into it fell my yearning, everything in you was shipwreck.
Oh
sink of rubble, everything was falling in you,
what
sorrow did you not wring, what waves did not choke you.
From
breaker to breaker still you called out and sang.
Perched
like a mariner in the prow of a boat.
Still
you burgeoned in song, still you burst in the torrents.
Oh
sink of rubble, open and bitter well-shaft.
Pale
blind diver, ill-fated stone-slinger,
lost
explorer, everything in you was shipwreck.
It
is time to leave, the hard and cold time
which
the night fastens on every timetable.
The
noisy belt of the sea girds the seacoast.
Cold
stars surge up, black birds migrate.
Bereft
like wharves in the dawn.
Only
flickering shadows coil in my hands.
Ah
beyond everything. Ah beyond everything.
Bereft!
It is time to leave.
(translated
by Alan Marshfield)
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