Pablo Neruda

“I have slept with you all night long while the dark earth spins with the living and the dead, and on waking suddenly in the midst of the shadow my arm encircled your waist. Neither night nor sleep could separate us.”

“You can cut all the flowers but you cannot keep Spring from coming.”

“My duty moves along with my song:I am I am not: that is my destiny.I exist not if I do not attend to the painof those who suffer: they are my pains.For I cannot be without existing for all,for all who are silent and oppressed,I come from the people and I sing for them:my poetry is song and punnishment.”

“If you should ask me where I've been all this timeI have to say "Things happen."I have to dwell on stones darkening the earth,on the river ruined in its own duration:I know nothing save things the birds have lost,the sea I left behind, or my sister crying.Why this abundance of places? Why does day lockwith day? Why the dark night swilling roundin our mouths? And why the dead?”

“Who writes your name in letters of smoke among the stars of the south?Oh let me remember you as you were before you existed.”

“As if you were on fire from within.The moon lives in the lining of your skin.”

“Green was the silence, wet was the light,the month of June trembled like a butterfly.”

“Pale blind diver, luckless slinger, lost discoverer, in you everything sank!”

“Your house sounds like a train at midday,the wasps buzz, the saucepans sing,the waterfall enumerates the deeds of the dew . . .”

“How much does a man live, after all?/ Does he live a thousand days, or one only?For a week, or for several centuries?/ How long does a man spend dying?/ What does it mean to say 'for ever'? ”

“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.”

“Joyful, joyful, joyful,as only dogs know how to be happywith only the autonomyof their shameless spirit.”

“On our earth, before writing was invented, before the printing press was invented, poetry flourished. That is why we know that poetry is like bread; it should be shared by all, by scholars and by peasants, by all our vast, incredible, extraordinary family of humanity.”

“I had no more alphabetthan the journeying of the swallows,the pure and tiny waterof the small, fiery birdthat dances rising from the pollen.”

“ay,amar es un viaje con agua y con estrellas,con aire ahogado y bruscas tempestades de harina: amar es un combate de relámpagos y dos cuerpos por una sola miel derrotados -pablo neruda”

“I love you only because it's you the one I love;I hate you deeply, and hating youBend to you, and the measure of my changing love for youIs that I do not see you but love you blindly.”

“I love you as the plant that never blooms but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers; thanks to your love a certain solid fragrence risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body. and: No one can stop the river of your hands, your eyes and their sleepiness, my dearest. You are the trembling of time, which passes between the vertical light and the darkening sky. and: From the stormy archipelagoes I brought my windy accordian, waves of crazy rain, the habitual slowness of natural things: they made up my wild heart.”

“About me, nothing worse they will tell you, my love, than what I told you ”

“With which stars do they go on speaking,the rivers that never reach the sea?”

“‎Para que nada nos separe que nada nos una.”

“Never an illness, nor the absenceof grandeur, no,nothing is able to kill the best in us,that kindness, dear sir, we are afflicted with:beautiful is the flower of man, his conduct,and every door opens on the beautiful truthand never hides treacherous whispers.I always gained something from making myself better,better than I am, better than I was,that most subtle citation:to recover some lost petalof the sadness I inherited:to search once more for the light that singsinside of me, the unwavering light.”

“Te amo sin saber como, ni cuando, ni de donde. te amo directamente sin problemas ni orgullo: asi te amo porque no se amar de otra manera, sino asi de este modo en que no soy ni eres...”

“I love all things, not only the grand but the infinitely small: thimble, spurs, plates, flower vases.....”

“Well, nowIf little by little you stop loving meI shall stop loving youLittle by littleIf suddenly you forget meDo not look for meFor I shall already have forgotten youIf 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”

“With a chaste heart With pure eyes I celebrate your beautyHolding the leash of bloodSo that it might leap out and trace your outline Where you lie down in my Ode As in a land of forests or in surfIn aromatic loam, or in sea musicBeautiful nudeEqually beautiful your feetArched by primeval tap of wind or soundYour ears, small shellsOf the splendid American seaYour breasts of level plentitudeFulfilled by living lightYour flying eyelids of wheatRevealing or enclosingThe two deep countries of your eyesThe line your shoulders have divided into pale regionsLoses itself and blends into the compact halves of an apple Continues separating your beauty down into two columns ofBurnished goldFine alabasterTo sink into the two grapes of your feetWhere your twin symmetrical tree burns again and risesFlowering fireOpen chandelierA swelling fruit Over the pact of sea and earth From what materialsAgate?Quartz?Wheat?Did your body come together?Swelling like baking bread to signal silvered hills The cleavage of one petal Sweet fruits of a deep velvet Until alone remainedAstonished The fine and firm feminine form It is not only light that falls over the world spreading inside your bodyYet suffocate itselfSo much is clarity Taking its leave of youAs if you were on fire within The moon lives in the lining of your skin.”

“Everything is ceremony in the wild garden of childhood.”

“my feet will want to walk to where you are sleepingbutI shall go on living.”

“I love all things, not because they are passionate or sweet-smellingbut because, I don't know,becausethis ocean is yours,and mine:these buttonsand wheelsand littleforgottentreasures,fans uponwhose featherslove has scatteredits blossoms,glasses, knives and scissors --all bearthe traceof someone's fingerson their handle or surface,the trace of a distant handlostin the depths of forgetfulness.”

“This time is difficult, wait for me:we will live it out vividly.Give me your small hand:we will rise and suffer,we will feel and rejoice.We are once more the pairwho lived in bristling places,in harsh nests in the rock.This time is difficult, wait for mewith a basket, with a shovel,with your shoes and your clothes.Now we need each othernot only for the carnations' sake,not only to look for honey:we need our handsto wash with and to make fire,and so let our difficult timestand up to infinitywith four hands and four eyes.”

“Only do not forget, if I wake up cryingit's only because in my dream I'm a lost childhunting through the leaves of the night for your hands....”

“The books that help you most are those which make you think the most. The hardest way of learning is that of easy reading; but a great book that comes from a great thinker is a ship of thought, deep freighted with truth and beauty.”

“A bibliophile of little means is likely to suffer often. Books don't slip from his hands but fly past him through the air, high as birds, high as prices.”

“Mi vida, no hallarás en el pozo en que caes lo que yo guardo para ti en la altura".”

“Then love knew it was called love. And when I lifted my eyes to your name, suddenly your heart showed me my way”

“Умира бавно този…който не пътува, който не чете и не слуша музика, който не открива очарование в себе си.Умира бавно този… който разрушава себелюбието си, който отказва помощта, който не търси разнообразие.Умира бавно този… който се превръща в роб на навика, минавайки всеки ден по същите пътеки, който не рискува да се облече в различен цвят и не разговаря с непознати.Умира бавно този… който бяга от страстта и водовъртежа на чувствата, които връщат блясъка в очите и спасяват тъжните сърца.Умира бавно този… който не променя живота си, когато е недоволен от работата или любовта си, който не рискува сигурността за неизвестното, за да преследва една мечта, който не се решава поне веднъж в живота си да избяга от мъдрите съвети.Не умирай бавно… Живей днес! Рискувай днес! Действай днес! Не се оставяй да умираш бавно! Не забравяй да бъдеш щастлив!”

“Everything is so alive, that I can be alive. Without moving I can see it all. In your life I see everything that lives.”

“PoetryAnd it was at that age... Poetry arrived in search of me. I don’t know, I don’t know where it came from, from winter or a river. I don’t know how or when, no, they were not voices, they were notwords, nor silence, but from a street I was summoned, from the branches of night, abruptly from the others, among violent fires or returning alone, there I was without a face and it touched me. I did not know what to say, my mouthhad no way with names my eyes were blind, and something started in my soul, fever or forgotten wings, and I made my own way, deciphering that fire and I wrote the first faint line,faint, without substance, purenonsense, pure wisdom of someone who knows nothing, and suddenly I saw the heavens unfastened and open, planets, palpitating planations, shadow perforated, riddled with arrows, fire and flowers, the winding night, the universe. 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 free on the open sky.”

“Le déracinement pour l'être humain est une frustration qui, d'une manière ou d'une autre, atrophie la clarté de son âme.”

“I am no longer in love with her, that's certain, but maybe I love her. Love is so short, forgetting is so long.”

“Let us forget with generosity those who cannot love us”

“I love you as certain dark things are loved, secretly, between the shadow and the soul.”

“In the eyes of mourning the land of dreams begins.”

“Ya no la quiero, es cierto, pero cuánto la quise. Mi voz buscaba el viento para tocar su oído. De otro. Será de otro. Como antes de mis besos. Su voz, su cuerpo claro. Sus ojos infinitos. Ya no la quiero, es cierto, pero tal vez la quiero. Es tan corto el amor, y es tan largo el olvido. Porque en noches como ésta la tuve entre mis brazos, mi alma no se contenta con haberla perdido. Aunque éste sea el último dolor que ella me causa, y éstos sean los últimos versos que yo le escribo. ”

“Escóndeme en tus brazospor esta noche sola,mientras la lluvia rompecontra el mar y la tierrasu boca innumerable.”

“Me gustas cuando callas porque estás como ausente.Distante y dolorosa como si hubieras muerto.Una palabra entonces, una sonrisa bastan.Y estoy alegre, alegre de que no sea cierto.”

“I Like For You To Be StillI like for you to be stillIt is as though you are absentAnd you hear me from far awayAnd my voice does not touch youIt seems as though your eyes had flown awayAnd it seems that a kiss had sealed your mouthAs all things are filled with my soulYou emerge from the thingsFilled with my soulYou are like my soulA butterfly of dreamAnd you are like the word: MelancholyI like for you to be stillAnd you seem far awayIt sounds as though you are lamentingA butterfly cooing like a doveAnd you hear me from far awayAnd my voice does not reach youLet me come to be still in your silenceAnd let me talk to you with your silenceThat is bright as a lampSimple, as a ringYou are like the nightWith its stillness and constellationsYour silence is that of a starAs remote and candidI like for you to be stillIt is as though you are absentDistant and full of sorrowSo you would've diedOne word then, One smile is enoughAnd I'm happy;Happy that it's not true”

“A song of despairThe memory of you emerges from the night around me.The river mingles its stubborn lament with the sea.Deserted like the dwarves at dawn.It is the hour of departure, oh deserted one!Cold flower heads are raining over my heart.Oh pit of debris, fierce cave of the shipwrecked.In you the wars and the flights accumulated.From you the wings of the song birds rose.You swallowed everything, like distance.Like the sea, like time. In you everything sank!It was the happy hour of assault and the kiss.The hour of the spell that blazed like a lighthouse.Pilot's dread, fury of blind driver,turbulent drunkenness of love, in you everything sank!In the childhood of mist my soul, winged and wounded.Lost discoverer, in you everything sank!You girdled sorrow, you clung to desire,sadness stunned you, in you everything sank!I made the wall of shadow draw back,beyond desire and act, I walked on.Oh flesh, my own flesh, woman whom I loved and lost,I summon you in the moist hour, I raise my song to you.Like a jar you housed infinite tenderness.and the infinite oblivion shattered you like a jar.There was the black solitude of the islands,and there, woman of love, your arms took me in.There was thirst and hunger, and you were the fruit.There were grief and ruins, and you were the miracle.Ah woman, I do not know how you could contain mein the earth of your soul, in the cross of your arms!How terrible and brief my desire was to you!How difficult and drunken, how tensed and avid.Cemetery of kisses, there is still fire in your tombs,still the fruited boughs burn, pecked at by birds.Oh the bitten mouth, oh the kissed limbs,oh the hungering teeth, oh the entwined bodies.Oh the mad coupling of hope and forcein which we merged and despaired.And the tenderness, light as water and as flour.And the word scarcely begun on the lips.This was my destiny and in it was my voyage of my longing,and in it my longing fell, in you everything sank!Oh pit of debris, everything fell into you,what sorrow did you not express, in what sorrow are you not drowned!From billow to billow you still called and sang.Standing like a sailor in the prow of a vessel.You still flowered in songs, you still brike the currents.Oh pit of debris, open and bitter well.Pale blind diver, luckless slinger,lost discoverer, in you everything sank!It is the hour of departure, the hard cold hourwhich the night fastens to all the timetables.The rustling belt of the sea girdles the shore.Cold stars heave up, black birds migrate.Deserted like the wharves at dawn.Only tremulous shadow twists in my hands.Oh farther than everything. Oh farther than everything.It is the hour of departure. Oh abandoned one!”

“While I'm writing, I'm far away;and when I come back, I've gone.”

“I like on the table,when we're speaking,the light of a bottleof intelligent wine.”

“En el amor, como agua del mar te has desatado.(In love, you have loosened yourself like seawater)”