Pablo Neruda

“The Truth is in the prolouge. Death to the romantic fool.,the expert in solitary confinement.”

“Absence is a house so vast that inside you will pass through its walls and hang pictures on the air.”

“If you no longer live,if you my beloved, my love, if you have died,all the leaves will fall in my breast,it will rain in my soul night and day,the snow will burn my heart,I shall walk with frost and fire and deathand snow,my feet will want to walk to where youare sleeping, butI shall live”

“sometimes i get up at dawn, and even my soul is wet.”

“I want to see the thirstinside the syllablesI want to touch the firein the sound:I want to feel the darknessof the cry. I wantwords as roughas virgin rocks.” - Verb.”

“If you think it long and mad the wind of banners that passes through my lifeAnd you decide to leave me at the shore of the heart where I have rootsRememberThat on that day, at that hour, I shall lift my armsAnd my roots will set off to seek another land”

“We must dream our way.”

“I have named you queen. There are taller than you, taller. There are purer than you, purer. There are lovelier than you, lovelier. But you are the queen.”

“Tai kiek gyvena zmogus?Tukstanti metu ar vienus?Gyvena savaite ar keleta amziu?Kiek laiko mirsta zmogus?Ka reiskia amzinybe?”

“Tie your heart at night to mine, love,and both will defeat the darknesslike twin drums beating in the forestagainst the heavy wall of wet leaves.Night crossing: black coal of dreamthat cuts the thread of earthly orbswith the punctuality of a headlong trainthat pulls cold stone and shadow endlessly.Love, because of it, tie me to a purer movement,to the grip on life that beats in your breast,with the wings of a submerged swan,So that our dream might replyto the sky's questioning starswith one key, one door closed to shadow.”

“I hunger for your sleek laugh,your hands the color of a savage harvest,hunger for the pale stones of your fingernails,I want to eat your skin like a whole almond.”

“Then I speak to her in a language she has never heard, I speak to her in Spanish, in the tongue of the long, crepuscular verses of Díaz Casanueva; in that language in which Joaquín Edwards preaches nationalism. My discourse is profound; I speak with eloquence and seduction; my words, more than from me, issue from the warm nights, from the many solitary nights on the Red Sea, and when the tiny dancer puts her arm around my neck, I understand that she understands. Magnificent language!”

“Madre de piedra, espuma de los cóndores.Alto arrecife de la aurora humana.Pala perdida en la primera arena.”

“I have forgotten your love, yet I seem to glimpse you in every window.”

“Sólo con una ardiente paciencia conquistaremos la espléndida ciudad que dará luz, justicia y dignidad a todos los hombres. Así la poesía no habrá cantado en vano.”

“Y algo golpeaba en mi alma, fiebre o alas perdidas, y me fui haciendo solo, descifrando aquella quemadura y escribí la primera línea vaga, vaga, sin cuerpo, pura, tontería pura sabiduría del que no sabe nada, y vi de pronto el cielo desgranado y abierto.”

“Preguntaréis por qué su poesía no nos habla del sueño, de las hojas, de los grandes volcanes de su país natal? Venid a ver la sangre por las calles,venid a ver la sangre por las calles, venid a ver la sangre por las calles!”

“I am not me but the living matter fermenting and forming it's own shape in the fruitfulness of everyday”

“Tonight I can write the saddest lines...Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer and these the last verses that I write for her.”

“Lost in the forest, I broke off a dark twigand lifted its whisper to my thirsty lips:maybe it was the voice of the rain crying,a cracked bell, or a torn heart.Something from far off: it seemeddeep and secret to me, hidden by the earth,a shout muffled by huge autumns,by the moist half-open darkness of the leaves.Wakening from the dreaming forest there, the hazel-sprigsang under my tongue, its drifting fragranceclimbed up through my conscious mindas if suddenly the roots I had left behindcried out to me, the land I had lost with my childhood—-and I stopped, wounded by the wandering scent.”

“He who has nothing—it has been said many times—has nothing to lose but his chains.”

“No, my dog used to gaze at me,paying me the attention I need,the attention requiredto make a vain person like me understandthat, being a dog, he was wasting time,but, with those eyes so much purer than mine,he’d keep on gazing at mewith a look that reserved for me aloneall his sweet and shaggy life,always near me, never troubling me,and asking nothing.”

“Soy un poeta sin ningún preceptopero digo, sin lástima y sin pena:no hay asesino bueno en mi concepto.”

“Yo no me calloPerdone el ciudadano esperanzadomi recuerdo de acciones miserables,que levantan los hombres del pasado.Yo predico un amor inexorable.Y no me importa perro ni persona:sólo el pueblo es en mí considerable:sólo la Patria a mí me condiciona.Pueblo y Patria manejan mi cuidado:Patria y pueblo destinan mis deberesy si logran matar lo levantadopor el pueblo, es mi Patria la que muere.Es ése mi temor y mi agonía.Por eso en el combate nadie espereque se quede sin voz mi poesía.”

“Começarei por dizer, sobre os dias e anos de minha infância, que meu único personagem inesquecível foi a chuva.”

“Ya no la quiero, es cierto, pero tal vez la quiero.Es tan corto el amor, y es tan largo el olvido.”

“Amor"So many days, oh so many daysseeing you so tangible and so close,how do I pay, with what do I pay?The bloodthirsty springhas awakened in the woods.The foxes start from their earths,the serpents drink the dew,and I go with you in the leavesbetween the pines and the silence,asking myself how and whenI will have to pay for my luck.Of everything I have seen,it's you I want to go on seeing:of everything I've touched,it's your flesh I want to go on touching.I love your orange laughter.I am moved by the sight of you sleeping.What am I to do, love, loved one?I don't know how others loveor how people loved in the past.I live, watching you, loving you.Being in love is my nature.You please me more each afternoon.Where is she? I keep on askingif your eyes disappear.How long she's taking! I think, and I'm hurt.I feel poor, foolish and sad,and you arrive and you are lightningglancing off the peach trees.That's why I love you and yet not why.There are so many reasons, and yet so few,for love has to be so,involving and general,particular and terrifying,joyful and grieving,flowering like the stars,and measureless as a kiss.That's why I love you and yet not why.There are so many reasons, and yet so few,for love has to be so,involving and general,particular and terrifying,joyful and grieving,flowering like the stars,and measureless as a kiss.”

“If You Forget MeI want you to knowone thing.You know how this is:if I lookat the crystal moon, at the red branchof the slow autumn at my window,if I touchnear the firethe impalpable ashor the wrinkled body of the log,everything carries me to you,as if everything that exists,aromas, light, metals,were little boatsthat sailtoward those isles of yours that wait for me.Well, now,if little by little you stop loving meI shall stop loving you little by little.If suddenlyyou forget medo not look for me,for I shall already have forgotten you.If you think it long and mad,the wind of bannersthat passes through my life,and you decideto leave me at the shoreof the heart where I have roots,rememberthat on that day,at that hour,I shall lift my armsand my roots will set offto seek another land.Butif each day,each hour,you feel that you are destined for mewith implacable sweetness,if each day a flowerclimbs up to your lips to seek me,ah my love, ah my own,in me all that fire is repeated,in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,my love feeds on your love, beloved,and as long as you live it will be in your armswithout leaving mine.”

“Rechazada al caer, y sin forma obstinada.”

“Love.Because of you, in gardens of blossomingFlowers I ache from the perfumes of spring.I have forgotten your face, I no longerRemember your hands; how did your lipsFeel on mine?Because of you, I love the white statuesDrowsing in the parks, the white statues thatHave neither voice nor sight.I have forgotten your voice, your happy voice;I have forgotten your eyes.Like a flower to its perfume, I am bound toMy vague memory of you. I live with painThat is like a wound; if you touch me, you willMake to me an irreperable harm.Your caresses enfold me, like climbingVines on melancholy walls.I have forgotten your love, yet I seem toGlimpse you in every window.Because of you, the heady perfumes ofSummer pain me; because of you, I againSeek out the signs that precipitate desires:Shooting stars, falling objects.”

“Tomorrow we will only give thema leaf of the tree of our love, a leafwhich will fall on the earthlike if it had been made by our lipslike a kiss which fallsfrom our invincible heightsto show the fire and the tendernessof a true love.”

“I walked around as you do, investigatingthe endless star, and in my net, during the night,I woke up naked, the only thing caught, a fish trapped inside the wind.”

“kapag ako ay umaliskapag ako ay bumalikipagkait mo na sa akin ang tinapay,ang hangin, ang liwanag at ang tagsibolhuwag lamang ang iyong ngitidahil ito'y aking ikasasawi”

“Maybe someone will know I didn't weave crowns to draw blood; that I faught against mockery;that I did fill the high tide of my soul with truth.I repaid vileness with doves.”

“Take bread away from me, if you wish,take air away, butdo not take from me your laughter.Do not take away the rose,the lance flower that you pluck,the water that suddenlybursts forth in joy,the sudden waveof silver born in you.My struggle is harsh and I come backwith eyes tiredat times from having seenthe unchanging earth,but when your laughter entersit rises to the sky seeking meand it opens for me allthe doors of life.My love, in the darkesthour your laughteropens, and if suddenlyyou see my blood stainingthe stones of the street,laugh, because your laughterwill be for my handslike a fresh sword.Next to the sea in the autumn,your laughter must raiseits foamy cascade,and in the spring, love,I want your laughter likethe flower I was waiting for,the blue flower, the roseof my echoing country.Laugh at the night,at the day, at the moon,laugh at the twistedstreets of the island,laugh at this clumsyfool who loves you,but when I openmy eyes and close them,when my steps go,when my steps return,deny me bread, air,light, spring,but never your laughter. ”

“And I, infinitesima­l being, drunk with the great starry void, likeness, image of mystery, I felt myself a pure part of the abyss, I wheeled with the stars, my heart broke loose on the wind.”

“La banderaLevántate conmigo.Nadie quisieracomo yo quedarsesobre la almohada en que tus párpadosquieren cerrar el mundo para mí.Allí también quisieradejar dormir mi sangrerodeando tu dulzura.Pero levántate,tú, levántate,pero conmigo levántatey salgamos reunidosa luchar cuerpo a cuerpocontra las telarañas del malvado,contra el sistema que reparte el hambre,contra la organización de la miseria.Vamos,y tú, mi estrella, junto a mí,recién nacida de mi propia arcilla,ya habrás hallado el manantial que ocultasy en medio del fuego estarásjunto a mí,con tus ojos bravíos,alzando mi bandera.”

“Quiero hacer contigo lo que la primavera hace con los cerezos”

“The road made wet by the water of Augustshines like it was cut in full moonlight”

“From sorrow to sorrow love crosses its islandsand establishes roots that are watered by weeping.”

“I have named you queen.There are taller than you, taller.There are purer than you, purer.There are lovelier than you, lovelier.But you are the queen.When you go through the streetsNo one recognizes you.No one sees your crystal crown, no one looksAt the carpet of red goldThat you tread as you pass,The nonexistent carpet.And when you appearAll the rivers soundIn my body, bellsShake the sky,And a hymn fills the world.Only you and I,Only you and I, my love,Listen to it.”

“Death arrives among all that sound like a shoe with no foot in it, like a suit with no man in it, comes and knocks, using a ring with no stone in it, with no finger in it,comes and shouts with no mouth,with no tongue,with no throat.Nevertheless its steps can be heard and its clothing makes a hushed sound, like a tree.”

“You can say anything you want, yessir, but it's the words that sing, they soar and descend...I bow to them...I love them, I cling to them, I run them down, I bite into them, I melt them down...I love words so much...The unexpected ones...The ones I wait for greedily or stalk until, suddenly, they drop...”

“Of everything I have seen, it's you I want to go on seeing: of everything I've touched, it's your flesh I want to go on touching. I love your orange laughter. I am moved by the sight of you sleeping. What am I to do, love, loved one? I don't know how others love or how people loved in the past. I live, watching you, loving you. Being in love is my nature.”

“Io ti ho nominato regina.Ve n'è di più alte di te, di più alte.Ve né di più pure di te, di più pure.Ve né di più belle di te, di più belle.Ma tu sei la regina.Quando vai per le stradenessuno ti riconosce.Nessuno vede la tua corona di cristallo, nessuno guardail tappeto d'oro rossoche calpesti dove passi,il tappeto che non esiste.E quando t'affaccitutti i fiumi risuonanonel mio corpo, scuotonoil cielo le campane,e un inno empie il mondo.Tu sola ed io,tu sola ed io, amor mio,lo udiamo.”

“Tengo hambre de tu boca, de tu voz, de tu peloy por las calles voy sin nutrirme, callado,no me sostiene el pan, el alba me desquicia,busco el sonido líquido de tus pies en el día.Estoy hambriento de tu risa resbalada,de tus manos color de furioso granero,tengo hambre de la pálida piedra de tus uñas,quiero comer tu piel como una intacta almendra.Quiero comer el rayo quemado en tu hermosura,la nariz soberana del arrogante rostro,quiero comer la sombra fugaz de tus pestañasy hambriento vengo y voy olfateando el crepúsculobuscándote, buscando tu corazón calientecomo un puma en la soledad de Quitratúe”

“To harden the earththe rocks took charge:instantlythey grew wings:the rocksthat soared:the survivorsflew upthe lightning bolt,screamed in the night,a watermark,a violet sword,a meteor.The succulentskyhad not only clouds,not only space smelling of oxygen,but an earthly stoneflashing here and therechanged into a dove,changed into a bell,into immensity, into a piercingwind:into a phosphorescent arrow,into salt of the sky.”

“Where were you then?Who else was there?Saying what?Why will the whole of love come on me suddenlywhen I am sad and feel you are far away?”

“Sometimes a piece of sunburned like a coin in my hand.”

“En un beso sabrás todo lo que he callado”