hen
it appeared
in I924,
erud,, launched
poet, whose
work
unknown
,g'eneratio
Dram
into
from
of associations,
Pablo
collection
a young
and
would
ignite a
he international
the most
k}ynte
spodight
intimate
and
personal
N eruda's
most
beloved
ofpoetryjuzaposes
the exuberance
of youthful
passion
grief, the sensuality
metaphorical
nuances
'with the desolation
o{' the body 'with
of nature.
Interspersed
illustrations
Picasso,
faces
also
with
W.
S. Mcmvin's
the original
features
translation
text. This
a wonderful
by Oristina
by Pablo
masterly
Spanish
new
of
the
edition
Introduction
Garda.
Eighly
years aher its publication,
infe poemas de omo(y uno concidn de3eper. cl stands
as an
essential
inspire
PENGUIN
collection
lovers
CLASSICS
and
that
poets
continues
around
DELUXE
to
the world.
EDITION
PENGUIN CLASSICS ( DELUXE EDITION
TWENTY
LOVE
PABLO
NERUDA
grew
up
POEMS
AND
(1904-1972)
in the
A SONG
was
pioneer
town
born
OF
DESPAIR
in Parral,
Chile.
He
he
met
of Temuco
where
Gabriela Mistral. In 1920 he went to Santiago to study and
began to publish his poetry. In 1924 the hugely successful
Veinte poemas de amory una canclan desesperada appeared.
From
1927
to 1943
Neruda
lived
abroad,
serving
as a diplomat
in Rangoon,
Colombo,
Batavia, Singapore,
Buenos Aires,
Barcelona,
Madrid,
Paris, and Mexico
City. He joined the
Communist
Party of Chile after World War II, and after being
prosecuted
for subversion,
he began a life in exile. Already
the most renowned
Latin American
poet of his time, he returned to Chile in 1952. In accepting the Nobel Prize in 1971,
he said that the poet must
and solidarity,
between
of one's self, the intimacy
nature."
achieve
a balance
"between
solitude
feeling and action, between
intimacy
of mankind,
and the revelation
of
PENGUIN
BOOKS
PENGUIN
BOOKS
Pubhshed
Penguin
Group
(USA)
by the Penguin
Inc., 375 Hudson
Penguin
Books
Ltd, 80 Strand,
Books
(South
Group
Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.
London
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Vefnte poemas de amory una canc6n desesperada first published
Thus translation first publushed
in Great Britain by Jonathan
Furst published
This edition
in the United
Published
with an introduction
States of Ameruca
in Penguin
Books
and notes by Cristina
m Chile 1924
Cape Ltd 1969
by Grossman
Publishers
1976
Garcfa
published
1969
in Penguin
Books
2004
791086
English
language
translation
Introduction
Artwork
by Pablo Picasso
and notes
W. S. Merwin,
Cristina
Garcfa,
2003 Estate of Pablo Picasso/Artists
All rights
ISBN
Printed
Set in Weiss
with
0 14
24.3770
data
available
in the
United
States
0
of America
Swash
Caps and
by Sabrina
Bowers
Sackers
Heavy
this book is sold subject to the condution
be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise
circulated
without
sent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published
tion including
this condition
being imposed
1969
2004
Rights Society (ARS), New York
reserved
CIP
Pastonchi
Designed
Except n the United States of America,
of trade or otherwise,
copyright
copyright
on the subsequent
purchaser.
that t shall not, by way
the publisher's
prior con-
and without a simular condi-
The scanning, uploading and dustribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means wuthout the
permissuon of the publisher is 11egal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic
editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic pracy of copyrighted
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of the author's
rghts
is appreciated
'ontents
Introduction
.........................
vii
I. Body of a Woman
..................
n. The Light Wraps You ...............
nI. Ah Vastness of Pines ...............
IV. The Morning
Is Full ...............
n
v. So that You
vI. ! Remember
,
xqI.
Leaning
a
Will Hear Me ..........
You As You Were
.......
into the Afternoons
........
viii.
White Bee ....................
IX. Drunk
with Pines ................
x. We Have Lost Even
...............
xI.
xn.
XlII.
xIV.
xv.
xvI.
Almost
out of the Sky
Day
xwI.
Thinking,
Here
XlX.
............
...........
You Play
4.7
...........
I Like for You to Be Still ..........
In My Sky at Twilight ...........
XVIII.
xx.
o7
aa
.............
Your Breast Is Enough
I Have Gone Marking
Every
! Love
Tangling
Shadows
You
...............
Girl Lithe and Tawny
Toni#ht
I Can
The Song of Despair
Write
'a
7
.....
...........
.............
..................
Selected Bibliography
..................
Suggestions for Further Reading
.........
71
7
77
Introduction
Body of a woman, white hills, white thighs
You look like a world, lying in surrender.
My rough peasant} body digs in you
and makes the son leap from the depth of the earth.
(From
From
the opening
of the senses.
That
along
with
world
was still recovering
global
war--is
twenty
of a Woman")
lines of this stunning
twenty-year-old
Pablo Neruda,
we're in the hands of a nascent
lead us, confidently,
lyrically,
realm
"Body
others,
all the more
this poem,
was
collection
by the
it is immediately
obvious
that
master, of someone
who can
from darkness
into the sweet
published
"Body
from the ravages
remarkable.
of a Woman,"
in 1924--when
That
the
of the first truly
this collection
was instantly, rapturously
received
signaled that the public,
after being "alone in the loneliness of this hour of the dead,"
was hungry for a more personal, more intimate art, that they
yearned
for an endorsement
of the individual
and his struggles, loves, and losses. In Pablo Neruda, they found their poet.
Neruda
arrived at the age of sixteen to the capital city of
Santiago
to study French literature after a childhood
spent
largely in Temuco,
a densely
forested region in the south of
Chile, with his railroad worker father and his loving step-
mother
(Neruda's
an infant). He'd
mother
died of tuberculosis
read widely
and indiscriminately
the
tales
adventurous
of Victor Hugo,
perimentations
he'd
tried
of Jules
Verne,
the
when
he was
as a boy:
sentimental
novels
the pirate stories of Emilio Salgari, the exof the French symbolist
poets. As a teenager,
his hand
at translating
Baudelaire
and
tackled
Don
Quixote.
Neruda's
family,
especially
his father, was
writing
poems,
preferring
that he concentrate
tical pursuits.
In fact, he changed
Eliecer
Neftalf
Reyes,
torical
novelist
Jan
to Pablo
his given
Neruda
Neruda)
in part
(after
to avoid
opposed
on more
name,
to his
prac-
Ricardo
the Czech
his-
his father's
dis-
approval.
But the young
Neruda
could
not be dissuaded
from, as he put it, "hunting
poems."
In a later poem
in Isla Negra, he described
the magical
natural world of his childhood:
Rapture
of the rivers,
banks of thicket and fragrance,
sudden boulders,
and land, ample
What
emerged
Neruda's
in Twenty
second
his senses,
burnt-out
trees,
and lonely...
Love
collection,
Poems
is the voice
his curiosity,
and
are
abstract
poems
the messy,
scented
of life. These
beauty
or love,
loves
and
lusts.
not
but
Neruda
needed
his direct
to look
and a Song
of a poet
and
who
open
aimed
trusts
experience
at idealizing
perceptions
no
of Despair,
further
of lived
than
his
own world
for inspiration.
His poems
are populated
not by
distant
Greek
goddesses
but by the lovely,
earthy
Chilean
women
who enraptured
him and the solitude
that frequently
engulfed
him.
His work
is more
intuitive
than intellectual
and his images
are firmly
rooted
in the severe
beauty
of his native
soil. He
connects
the erotic
with telluric
forces
and the organic
cycles of nature.
A lover becomes
an "earth-shell,
in whom
the
earth sings." The morning
star burns,
"kissing
our eyes." Even
loss is a protagonist,
goading
life to its fullest expression.
For
all their formal
beauty,
there is an improvised,
impulsive
feel
to these poems,
as if they were written
in the dank aftermath
of passion.
Transformed
by memory,
regrets,
and above
all,
by his exquisite
sensibility,
Neruda
writes
from
the nuanced
points
of view of his tongue
and his fingertips,
his nostrils,
his eyes, his ears.
My words rained over you, stroking you.
A long time I have loved the sunned mother-of-pearl
your body.
I go so far as to think that you own the universe.
I will bring you happyflowers
from the mountains,
of
bluebells,
dark hazels, and rustic baskets
of kisses.
I want
to do with you what
spring does with the cherry
(from
"Every
Day
You
trees.
Play")
Neruda
trusts
and
celebrate
his
senses
and
inextricably
links his experiences,
quite specifically,
to the natural
world
he loves: to the damp
forests
of southern
Chile;
to the thick,
gnarled
roots of the pines deeply
penetrating
the earth; to
the lonely
rains that occluded
the sun and cast the world
through
its fine veils; to the roiling
rivers and seas that
brought
renewal
and hope and, sometimes,
destruction.
For
Neruda,
this tightly
woven
web of nature
symbolism
became
a grid through
which
he could
begin
to make
sense of his
life, to explore
both the spiritual
and physical
worlds.
For
him, it was all one continuous
geography.
But you, cloudless girl, question of smoke, corn tassel.
You were what the wind was making with illuminated
Behind the nocturnal
mountains,
white lily of
conflagration,
ah, I can say nothing; You were made of everything.
(from
"Almost
out
of the
Sky")
It is this combination
of the sensory
and the natural,
the
subjective
and the eternal,
the instinctual
and the commonly
transcendent
(coupled
with a fierce anti-intellectualism)
that
distinguishes
Neruda's
poetry
from
that of his contemporaries. He finds the glorious
in the ordinary,
transforming
it,
simply
and forcefully,
with his lyric genius.
His preoccupation with recurring
personal
symbols
is already
in evidence
in Twenty
Love Songs and a Song of Despair:
cherries
and stars,
rivers and roots and trains. They
will forever
suffuse
his poetic landscape.
"In the house
of poetry,"
Neruda
once
declared,
"nothing
remains
except
that which
was written
with
blood
to be listened
to by blood."
In Neruda's
native
Chile,
the post-war
period
was marked
by growing
political
ferment
as the old, laissez-faire
policy
of the Parliamentary
Republic
(1891-1925)
slowly
gave
way to a new constitution
that not only helped
erode
the
power
of the Catholic
Church
but also spurred
a wave
of
social reforms
that guaranteed
civil rights
and social justice
and established
democratic-like
precedents.
Chileans
were
ready
for change.
They
wanted
their voices
to be heard
directly,
not interpreted
by others
distant
to their experiences.
Neruda's
poems
spoke
to this public
desperate
for
acknowledgment.
Traditionally,
many
Chileans
of the elite and
uppermiddle
classes
viewed
themselves
as European
in outlook
and
turned
to Europe,
particularly
France,
as a guide
to cultural
innovation.
A homegrown
talent such as Neruda
stirred
their
national
pride.
He spoke
to them
of their mountains
and
trees, of their rivers and nocturnal
flowers,
of their dreams
and "the hard cold hour which
the night
fastens
to all timeables."
Neruda
held up a mirror
in which
Chileans
could
view themselves
and be pleased.
Reading
Neruda,
they could
feel
a common
identity
beyond
their
separate
lives,
land-
marks,
and scents they could
call their own. After the publication
of Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair, Neruda
grew
famous
well beyond
his circle of bohemian
friends
in Santiago and the Chilean
government
rewarded
him with the first
of his many
diplomatic
postings.
Two
literary
figures
preceded
Neruda
in Chile:
Mistral
and Vicente
Huidobro.
Mistral,
who
knew
a schoolboy,
wrote
her first book
of love poems
Gabriela
Neruda
as
in 1914,
a
in a romance
with a
collection
that apparently
had its origins
railway
employee
who
committed
suicide.
Her other
early
collections,
which
emphasized
the intensity
of human
emotion, included
Desolaci6n
(1922)
and Ternura
(1924)
and are
considered
to be more
hermetically
personal
than Neruda's
poetry.
Huidobro,
on the other hand,
was much
more
concernedwith
matters
of the literary
avant-garde
and sought
to
use modern
French
techniques
in his poetry.
While
admired,
Huidobro's
work
didn't inspire
in Chileans
the love and close
identification
In the
that
Neruda's
poems
did.
beyond
Chile,
post-war
world
disillusionment
and
cynicism
colored
the collective
outlook
of a generation
of
young
Europeans
and Americans,
one in which
moral
expectations
were
dramatically
changed
and the allegiances
to existing social structures
(government,
church,
moral
leaders)
were
compromised,
if not discarded.
This tendency
toward
alienation
and social dislocation
was amplified
by artists who
pronounced
the death
of a discredited
culture
and sought
fresh
directions
in various
movements
and philosophies.
No more
the "sleek self-satisfaction:
solid, comfortable,
yet
decked
with
a faintly
ironic,
knowing
mock-tudoring,"
as
one critic described
the Edwardian
architecture
of the preWorld
War
I years.
Though
Victorian
England
and Europe
had been characterized
by optimism,
security,
and self-assuredness,
within
a
few years Freud
(who
argued
for the unconscious),
Einstein
(who
in 1904
argued
for relativity),
and Heisenberg
(who
argued
for uncertainty
in 1927)
unseated
the categorical
assumptions
of the nineteenth
century
as delivered
by Darwin's theory
of evolution,
Pasteur's
discovery
of germs,
the
worldwide
elimination
of slavery,
the absence
of major
global
conflicts
for several
decades,
and the stranglehold
of
religious
authority.
Adding
further
to the sense of a general
breaking
down
of formal
structures
was the advent
of mass
culture
during
the 1920s
through
the "talkies"
and the introduction
of radio
and
records.
Several
artistic
and literary
movements
flected
the social and philosophical
crises
futurism,
Dadaism,
ultraism,
creationism,
the same year that Neruda
Song of Despair, the explosion
other, these movements
realism
and the constructions
contention
that art could
speak
to all peoples
in a
emerged
of the times:
modernism,
that re
cubism,
and, in
published
Twenty
Love Poems and a
of surrealism.
In one way or anwere all assaults
on the status quo, on
of national
literatures,
on the
be ideal and universal,
that it could
unified,
necessarily
Western,
voice.
Of these
various
movements,
the most
influential
and
long-standing
was modernism
(although
in the Spanish
language,
modernismo
is generally
acknowledged
to have begun
with the publication
of Rubn
Dafto's
Azul in 1888 and ended
with the Nicaraguan
poet's death
in 1916).
Modernism
flourished
as it hailed
the fragmentation
of daily
life and the
emphasis
on the individual's
(usually
disaffected)
experience.
As once-coherent
social
institutions
crumbled
into insignificance,
what
was left to relay but individual
experience?
Neruda
aligned
himself
most
closely
with
other
Latin
American
writers
of his time
to the Mexican
poet Ram6n
L6pez
Velarde
(La sangre devota, 1916)
and the Peruvian
poet
Csar
Vallejo
(Los heraldos negros, 1918)--who
were embracing a radical
departure
from
their literary
inheritances
to an
as-yet
uncharted
world
borne
distinctly
in and of the Amer-
icas. Years later, Nemda
wrote
of wanting
to create
a poetry
"corroded
as if by an acid, by the toil of the hand,
impregnated
with sweat
and smoke,
smelling
of urine and lilies."
He reminded
readers
that even if they'd
been to hell and
back, they could
still fall in love, experience
beauty
and rapture, nurse their indigniities
and personal
tragedies,
and still
appreciate
that "the best poet is the man
who
delivers
our
daily bread."
Neruda
poignantly
rendered
the world
of the
common
man
and connected
him,
through
the redolent
details
of his natural
world,
to forces
larger
than himself,
forces untainted
by human
crassness
and ambition.
His poetry

xIv

challenged
readers
transformation,
to less static
like nature
lives,
lives
susceptible
to
itself.
My hfe grows tired, hungry to no purpose.
I love what I do not have. You are so far.
My loathing wrestles with the slow twilights.
But night comes and starts to sing to me.
The
moon
turns
its clockwork
dream.
The biggest stars look at me with your eyes.
And as I love you, the pines in the wind
want to sing your name with their leaves of wire.
(from
"Here
Neruda's
literary contemporaries
sense of the world
in their
The Wasteland
in 1922, and
Marianne
Moore,
Hilda Doolittle,
los Williams,
and Wallace
Stevens
make
duced
cents.
Writers
from
genres were exploring
identities,
and that
with
them
Miguel
Woolf,
the sudden
were Luigi
de Unamuno,
and Junichiro
other
cultural
I Love
in English
own ways.
poets such
You")
were trying to
T. S. Eliot proas Hart Crane,
Ezra Pound,
William
Carall began
their artistic astraditions
and
literary
the notions
of unstable
and indefinite
of the individual's
attempt
to grapple
complexities
Pirandello,
Franz
Tanizaki.
of a new world
order.
James
Joyce,
Fernando
Among
Pessoa,
Kafka,
Virginia
Marcel
Proust,
In short, the period
following
the end of World
War I was
not just marked
by the conclusion
of the war to end all wars,
but also by a profound
shift in the logistics
of the world,
from the collapse
of the old system
of European
civilization
(over six hundred
years of the Austro-Hungarian
Empire)
to
the shaky
alliances
that emerged
after the war, from a Tsarist
Russia
to a Bolshevik
one, from an isolationist
America
to a
relatively
more
internationalist
one. In 1924,
Gandhi
fasted
for independence,
Stalin succeeded
Lenin,
and Andr
Breton
wrote
the first surrealist
manifesto.
When
the great Spanish
poet Federico
Garcia
Lorca
introduced
Neruda
to his contemporaries
in Madrid
a few years
later, he described
the
Chilean
as "a poet closer to death
than to philosophy,
a poet
closer
to pain than to intellect,
closer
to blood
than to ink."
It would
seem
to discuss
Twenty
incomplete
and
Love Poems
somewhat
and a Song
dishonest
of Despair
without
of me
com-
menting
on the very personal
impact
this work
has had on
my life and the lives of so many
of my friends.
This volume
was one of the first to open
my eyes and sensibility
to the
possibility
of poetry.
I first read it in my late twenties
(alongside Federico
Garcia
Lorca
and Wallace
Stevens)
when
I was
still a journalist
and trying
to figure out the nature
of my discontent.
Not only did these poems
deeply
resonate
with me,
but they galvanized
me, finally, into starting
to write myself.
They
stirred
me body
and soul.

xvI

With
their gorgeous
sweep
and intimacy,
their sensuality and rhapsody,
and their "secret revelations
of nature,"
Neruda's
poems
also made
me want to reclaim
Spanish,
the
language
of my childhood,
after a long, sad silence.
It is not
an exaggeration
to say that they helped
me to discover
who
! was
and
what
I was
meant
to do.
How
I sang
these
poems
aloud, again and again, in Spanish
and in English,
for the
pure joy of hearing
them on my tongue,
for the imagery
they
conjured
up and the longings
they roused.
The morning
is full of storm
in the heart of summer.
The clouds travel like white handkerchiefs
of good-bye,
the wind, traveling, waving them in its hands.
The numberless
beating above
heart of the wind
our loving silence.
Orchestral
and divine, resounding
among
like a language full of wars and songs.
(from
"The
Morning
the trees
Is Full")
These
poems
have been my companions
when
I've fallen
madly,
adolescently,
in love--how
often have I read them to
lovers, who, too, fell under
their spell?--and
in the bittersweet
throes
of break-up
anguish.
Like so much
of Neruda's
other
work,
these
poems
are meant
to
with others.
Each
time I return
to them,
thing new, revitalize
my perspective,
and
my senses
and my sometimes-weary
heart.
Whether
whispering
or shouting
them
ems
in Twenty
Love Poems
look closely
at my
persistence
of love.
the very first time.
are possible,
cycling
evitable
and surprising
great art or faith or
sistency:
they offer
exultantly,
the poencourage
me to
for its small
miracles
and the
to me from the heart, as if for
me that renewal
and change
life like so many
seasons,
inThey
do something
that only
if we're lucky, do with any con-
and a Song
own
They
They
world
speak
remind
through
at once.
children,
hope.
of Despair
Oh to follow the road that leads away
without anguish, death, winter waiting
with their eyes open through the dew.
(from
be spoken,
shared
they give me somerefresh
and restore
"Almost
from everything,
along it
out
--Cristina
of the
Sky")
Garcfa
'uer?o
de mujer
Cuerpo de mujer, blancas colinas, muslos blancos,
te pareces al mundo en tu actitud de entrega.
Mi cuerpo de labriego salvaje te socava
y hace saltar el hijo delfondo
de la tierra.
Fui solo como un tanel. De mi hu'an los pdjaros,
yen m( la noche entraba su invasi6n poderosa.
Para sobrevivirme
te forj como un arma,
como una fiecha en mi arco, como una piedra en mi honda.
Pero cae ta hora de la venganza,
y te arno.
Cuerpo de piel, de musgo, de leche avida y firme.
Ah los vasos del pecho. Ah los ojos de ausencia.
Ah las rosas del pubis. Ah tu voz lenta y triste.
Cuerpo
Mi
de mujer
sed, mi ansia,
Oscuros
y la fatiga
cauces
m(a, persistirg
en tu gracia.
sin lmite, mi camino
donde
indeciso.
la sed eterna sigue,
sigue, y el dolor infinito.
Body
of a woman,
white
hills, white
thighs,
you look like a world,
lying in surrender.
My rough
peasant's
body
digs in you
and makes
the son leap from the depth
of the
earth.
I was alone like a tunnel.
The birds fled from me,
and night swamped
me with its crushing
invasion.
To survive
myself
I forged
you like a weapon,
like an arrow
in my bow, a stone in my sling.
But the hour
of vengeance
falls, and
I love
y. ou.
Body
of skin, of moss,
of eager and firm milk.
Oh the goblets
of the breast! Oh the eyes of absence!
Oh the roses of the pubis! Oh your voice, slow and
Body
of my woman,
I will persist in your grace.
My thirst, my boundless
desire, my shifting
road!
Dark
and
river-beds
weariness
where
the
eternal
follows,
and
the
thirst
infinite
flows
ache.
sad!
su
En su llama
llama
mortal
mortal
la luz te envuelve.
Absorta,
p,lida doliente, as situada
contra las viejas he'lices del crepsculo
queen torno a ti da vueltas.
Muda,
sola
mi amiga,
en lo solitario
de esta hora
de muertes
y llena de las vidas delfuego,
pura heredera del d'a destruido.
Del
sol cae un racimo
De la noche
crecen
en tu vestido
las grandes
de sbito
desde
oscuro.
farces
tu alma,
y a lo exterior regresan las cosas en ti ocultas,
de modo que un pueblo pdlido y azul
de ti recign
nacido
se alimenta.
Oh grandiosa
y fecunda y magngtica
esclava
del c(rculo queen negro y dorado sucede:
erguida, trata y logra una creaci6n tan vi'va
que sucumben
sus fiores, y Ilena es de tristeza.
'he ght
The
light
wraps
you
in its mortal
Abstracted
pale mourner,
against
the old propellers
that revolves
around
you.
Speechless,
alone
my
in the
qas
qOu
flame.
standing
that way
of the twilight
friend,
loneliness
of this
hour
of the
dead
and filled with the lives of fire,
pure heir of the ruined
day.
A bough
of fruit falls from
the sun on your. dark
The great roots of night
grow
suddenly
from your soul,
and the things
that hide in you come
so that a blue and pallid people,
your newly
born,
takes nourishment.
Oh magnificent
and fecund
and magnetic
of the circle that moves
in turn through
rise, lead and possess
a creation
so rich in life that its flowers
perish
and
it is full
of sadness.
garment.
out again
slave
black and
gold:
vastedad
de pinos
Ah vastedad de pinos, rumor de olas quebr,ndose,
lento juego de luces, campana solitaria,
crepsculo
caracola
cayendo
en tus ojos, mugeca,
terrestre,
en ti la tierra canta.
En ti los ffos cantan y mi alma en ellos huye
como t Io desees y hacia donde ti quieras.
M,rcame
mi camino
en tu arco de esperanza
y soltar(en delirio mi bandada
defiechas.
En torno a m; estoy viendo tu cintura de niebla
y tu silencio acosa mis horas perseguidas,
y eres t con tus brazos de piedra transparente
donde mis besos anclan y mi hmeda
ansia anida.
Ah tu voz misteriosa que el amor tie y dobla
en el atardecer resonante y muriendo!
As( en horas profundas sobre los campos he visto
doblarse las espigas en la boca del viento.
q/stness
of ines
Ah vastness
of pines, murmur
of waves
slow play of lights, solitary
bell,
twilight
falling in your eyes, toy doll,
earth-shell,
in whom
the earth
breaking,
sings!
In you the rivers sing and my soul flees in them
as you desire, and you send it where
you will.
Aim my road on your bow of hope
and in a frenzy
I will free my flock of arrows.
On all sides I see your
and your silence hunts
my kisses anchor,
and
of fog,
down
my afflicted hours;
my moist desire nests
in you
of transparent
with
your
Ah your mysterious
in the resonant
and
waist
arms
voice
dying
that love
evening!
Thus in deep hours I have seen, over
the ears of wheat
tolling
in the mouth
stone.
tolls
and
darkens
the fields,
of the wind.
la rnaana
Es la maana
11ena de tempestad
en el coraz6n
del verano.
Como pauelos
el viento
blancos de adi6s viajan las nubes,
las sacude
Innumerable
latiendo
llena
coraz6n
sobre nuestro
Zumbando
con sus viajeras
manos.
del viento
silencio
entre los drboles,
enamorado.
orquestal
como una lengua Ilena de guerras
y divino,
y de cantos.
Viento que lleva en rdpido robo la hojarasca
y desv'a lasfiechas latientes de los pjaros.
Viento que la derriba
y sustancia
en ola sin espuma
sin peso, yfuegos
inclinados.
Se rompe y se sumerge su volumen de besos
combatido
en la puerta del viento del verano.
The
morning
in the
is full of storm
heart
The
clouds
The
numberless
the wind,
beating
of summer.
travel like white
traveling,
heart
above
handkerchiefs
waving
them
of the
our loving
in its hands.
wind
silence.
Orchestral
and divine, resounding
among
like a language
full of wars and songs.
Wind
and
that bears
deflects
off the dead
the pulsing
of good-bye,
leaves
arrows
with
the trees
a quick
of the birds.
Wind
that topples
her in a wave without
spray
and substance
without
weight,
and leaning
fires.
Her
assailed
mass
of kisses
in the
door
breaks
of the
and
sinks,
summer's
wind.
raid
Para
Para
Collar,
me oigas
que t me oigas
mis palabras
se adelgazan
como
que
a veces
las huellas de las gaviotas
cascabel
en las playas.
ebrio
para tus manos
suaves como las uvas.
Y las miro lejanas mis palabras.
Mds
que m(as
son tuyas.
Van trepando en mi viejo dolor como las yedras.
Ellas trepan as' por las paredes hmedas.
Eres t la culpable
Ellas estrin huyendo
Todo
de este juego
de mi guarida
sangriento.
oscura.
lo 11enas t, todo lo llenas.
Antes que t poblaron
y estrin acostumbradas
la soledad que ocupas,
rods que t a mi tristeza.
Ahora quiero que digan lo que quiero decirte
para que ta me oigas como quiero que me oigas.
.5o that
q4'll [-ffear
So that you will hear me
my words
sometimes
grow
thin
as the tracks of the gulls on the
Necklace,
drunken
for your
And
hands
I watch
They
are more
They
climb
beaches.
bell
smooth
my
as grapes.
words
yours
on my
from
than
a long
way
off.
mine.
old suffering
like ivy.
It climbs
the same way on damp
walls.
You are to blame
for this cruel sport.
They
are fleeing
from my dark lair.
You fill everything,
you fill everything.
Before you they peopled
and they are more used
Now
I want
to make
you
them
hear
the solitude
to my sadness
that you occupy,
than you are.
to say what I want to say to you
as I want you to hear me.
El viento de la angustia
Huracanes
Escuchas
an las suele arrastrar.
de sueNos an a veces las turnban.
otras voces en mi voz dolorida.
Llanto de viejas bocas, sangre de viejas splicas.
mame, compaqera.
No me abandones.
Sigueme.
S'gueme, compaqera,
en esa ola de angustia.
Pero se van tiendo
Todo lo ocupas
con tu amor mis palabras.
t, todo lo ocupas.
Voy haciendo de todas un collar infinito
para tus blancas manos, suaves como las uvas.
The
wind
of anguish
still hauls
hurricanes
of dreams
Sometimes
You
listen
Lament
to other
voices
of old mouths,
Love
me,
Follow
companion,
making
for your
them
white
stained
you
into
hands,
painful
with
occupy
an endless
smooth
them
over.
voice.
of old supplications.
forsake
me.
on this wave
But my words
become
You occupy
everything,
! am
in my
Don't
as usual.
still knock
blood
companion.
me,
on them
Follow
of anguish.
your love.
everything.
necklace
as grapes.
me.
recuerdo
 recuerdo
como
como
eras en el ltimo
Eras la boina gris y el coraz6n
eras
otoo.
en calma.
En tus ojos peleaban las llamas del crepsculo.
Y las hojas catan en el agua de tu alma.
Apegada a mis brazos como una enredadera,
las hojas recogCan tu voz lenta yen calma.
Hoguera de estupor en que mised ard(a.
Dulce jacinto azul torcido sobre mi alma.
Siento viajar tus ojos y es distante el otoo:
boina gris, voz de pdjaro y coraz6n de casa
hacia donde emigraban mis profundos anhelos
y ca'an mis besos alegres como brasas.
Cielo desde un nav(o. Campo
desde los cerros.
Tu recuerdo es de luz, de humo, de estanque en calma.
Mds alld de tus ojos ard'an los crepasculos.
Hojas secas de otoo giraban en tu alma.
I xmember
o.ls 'Yu
qbre
I remember
you as you were
in the last autumn.
You were
the gray beret and the still heart.
In your eyes the flames
of the twilight
fought
And the leaves
fell in the water
of your soul.
Clasping
my arms like a climbing
plant
the leaves garnered
your voice, that was slow
Bonfire
of awe in which
my thirst was burning.
Sweet
blue hyacinth
twisted
over my soul.
on.
and
at peace.
I feel your eyes traveling,
and the autumn
is far off:
gray beret,
voice
of a bird, heart like a house
towards
which
my deep longings
migrated
and my kisses fell, happy
as embers.
Sky from a ship. Field from the hills.
Your memory
is made
of light, of smoke,
Beyond
your eyes, farther
on, the evenings
Dry autumn
leaves
revolved
in your soul.
of a still pond!
were blazing.
Inclinado
Inclinado
en las tardes
en
tarde
tiro mis tristes redes
a tus ojos ocednicos.
All( se estira y arde en la rods alta hoguera
mi soledad que da vueltas los brazos como un ndufrago.
Hago
rojas seales sobre tus ojos ausentes
que olean como el mar a la orilla de un faro.
S61o guardas
de tu mirada
Inclinado
tinieblas, hembra distante y m(a,
emerge a veces la costa del espanto.
en las tardes
a ese mar que sacude
echo mis tristes redes
tus ojos ocednicos.
Los pdjaros nocturnos picotean las primeras estrellas
que centellean como mi alma cuando te arno.
Galopa la noche en su yegua sombr(a
desparramando
espigas azules sobre el campo.
Ianing
Leaning
towards
into
your
into the ./Jernoons
the afternoons
oceanic
eyes.
I cast
There
in the highest
blaze my
and flames,
its arms turning
like a drowning
I send out
that move
red signals
across
like the sea near
You keep
from your
only darkness,
regard
sometimes
Leaning
to that
The
that
birds
flash
The night
shedding
my
solitude
sad
lengthens
man's.
your absent
a lighthouse.
my
eyes
distant
female,
the coast of dread
into the afternoons
I fling my sad
sea that beats on your marine
eyes.
of night peck at the first stars
like my soul when
I love you.
gallops
on its shadowy
blue tassels over the
nets
mare
land.
nets
emerges.
beja
blanca
Abeja blanca zumbas, ebria de miel, en mi alma
y te tuerces en lentas espirales de humo.
Soy el desesperado, ta palabra sin ecos,
el que lo perdi6 todo, y el que todo lo tuvo.
Itima amarra,
cruje en ti mi ansiedad
En mi tierra desierta eres la ltima
Ah
ltima.
rosa.
silenciosa.
Cierra tus ojos profundos. Alh' aletea la noche.
Ah desnuda
tu cuerpo
Kenes ojos profundos
de estatua
temerosa.
donde la noche alea.
Frescos brazos de ftor y regazo de rosa.
Se parecen tus senos a los caracoles blancos.
Ha venido a dormirse en tu vientre una mariposa
Ah
silenciosa!
de sombra.
VIII
q;hite
White
bee, you buzz in my soul, drunk with honey,
and your flight winds
in slow spirals of smoke.
I am the one without hope, the word without echoes,
he who lost everything and he who had everything.
Last hawser,
in you creaks my last longing.
Ah
are silent!
In my barren
you
who
land you are the final rose.
Let your deep eyes close. There the night flutters.
Ah your body, a frightened statue, naked.
You have deep eyes in which
Cool
arms of flowers
Your
breasts
seem
like white
A butterfly of shadow
Ah
you
who
the night flails.
and a lap of rose.
are silent!
snails.
has come to sleep on your belly.
He aqu la soledad de donde estds ausente.
Llueve.
El viento
del mar caza
errantes
gaviotas.
El agua anda descalza por las calles mojadas.
De aquel drbol se quejan, como enfermos, las hojas.
Abeja blanca, ausente, an zumbas en mi alma.
Revives
Ah
en el tiempo, delgada
silenciosa;
y silenciosa.
Here
is the solitude
from which
you
It is raining. The sea wind is hunting
The
water
From
White
You
Ah
walks
barefoot
that tree the leaves
bee, even when
live again
you
who
in time,
are silent!
in the wet
complain
stray gulls.
streets.
as though
you are gone
slender
are absent.
and
you buzz
silent.
they were
sick.
in my soul.
brio
de trernentina
Ebrio de trementina y largos besos,
estivai, el velero de las rosas dirijo,
torcido hacia la muerte del delgado dfa,
cimentado
en el s61ido frenes' marino.
Pdlido y amarrado a mi agua devorante
cruzo en el agrio olor del clima descubierto,
an vestido de gris y sonidos
areargos,
y una cimera triste de abandonaria
espuma.
Voy, duro de pasiones, montado en mi ola nica,
lunar, solar, ardiente y fifo, repentino,
dormido en la garganta de las afortunadas
islas blancas y dulces como caderas frescas.
embla
Iocamente
de modo
en la noche hmeda
cargado
heroico
y embriagadoras
mi vestido de besos
de el(ctricas gestiones,
dividido
en sueos
rosas practicdndose en m(.
Aguas arriba, en medio de las olas externas,
tu paralelo cuerpo se sujeta en mis brazos
como un pez infinitamente pegado a mi alma
rdpido y lento en la energia subceleste.
with
Drunk
with
pines
like summer
bent towards
stuck
and
long
Pines
kisses,
I steer the fast sail of the roses,
the death of the thin day,
into
my
solid
marine
madness.
Pale and lashed to my ravenous
water,
I cruise in the sour smell of the naked
climate,
still dressed
in gray and bitter sounds
and a sad crest of abandoned
spray.
Hardened
by passions,
I go mounted
on my
lunar, solar, burning
and cold, all at once,
becalmed
in the
that are white
throat
and
of the
sweet
In the moist night
charged
to insanity
my
heroically
into
and
divided
intoxicating
garment
with
roses
fortunate
as cool
of kisses
electric
isles
hips.
trembles
currents,
dreams
practicing
on me.
Upstream,
in the midst of the outer waves,
your parallel
body yields to my arms
like a fish infinitely
fastened
quick and slow, in the energy
to my soul,
under the sky.
one
wave,
[-tiernos ?erdido
aun
Hemos perdido aun este crepsculo.
Nadie nos vi6 esta tarde con las manos unidas
mientras la noche azul ca'a sobre el mundo.
He visto desde
mi ventana
lafiesta del poniente en los cerros lejanos.
A veces como
una moneda
se encend
un pedazo
Yo te recordaba
de esa tristeza
Entonces,
Entre
Diciendo
con el alma apretada
que ta me conoces.
d6nde
que  gentes.
de sol entre mis manos.
estabas?
?
qu( palabras?
Pot qu se me vendrd todo el amor de golpe
cuando
me siento triste, y te siento lejana?
Cay6 el libro que siempre se toma en el crepsculo
y como un perro herido rod6 a mis pies mi capa.
Siempre, siempre te alejas en las tardes
hacia donde el crepsculo
corre borrando
estatuas.
We have lost even this twilight.
No one saw us this evening
hand in hand
while the blue night dropped
on the world.
I have
seen
from
my
window
the fiesta of sunset
in the distant
Sometimes
of sun
a piece
burned
like a coin
I remembered
in that sadness
Where
Who
Saying
Why
when
were
else
tops.
my hands.
you with my soul clenched
of mine that you know.
you
was
between
mountain
then?
there?
what?
will the whole of love come on me suddenly
I am sad and feel you are far away?
The book fell that is always turned to at twilight
and my cape rolled like a hurt dog at my feet.
Always,
towards
always
where
you recede
the twilight
through
the evenings
goes erasing statues.
asi fuera
del cielo
Casi fuera del cielo ancla entre dos montaas
la mitad
de la luna.
Girante, errante noche, la cavadora de ojos.
A vet cudntas estrellas trizadas en la charca.
Hace una cruz de luto entre mis cejas, huye.
Fragua de metales azules, noches de las calladas luchas,
mi coraz6n da vueltas como un volante loco.
Nia venida de tan lejos, tra(da de tan lejos,
a veces fulgurece su mirada debajo del cielo.
Quejumbre, tempestad, remolino de furia,
cruza encima
de mi coraz6n,
sin detenerte.
Viento de los sepulcros acarrea, destroza, dispersa tu razz soolienta.
Desarraiga los grandes drboles al otto lado de ella.
Pero t, clara nia, pregunta
de humo, espiga.
Era la que iba formando el viento con hojas iluminadas.
Detrs de las montaas nocturnas, blanco lirio de incendio,
ah nada puedo decir! Era hecha de todas las cosas.
Almost
out of the sky, half of the moon
anchors
between
two
Turning,
wandering
Let's see how many
It makes
mountains.
night, the digger
stars are smashed
a cross of mourning
and
runs
away.
between
of eyes.
in the pool.
my eyes,
Forge of blue metals, nights of still combats,
my heart revolves
like a crazy wheel.
Girl who
sometimes
Rumbling,
you cross
Wind
sleepy
from
have come
from so far, been brought
from so far,
your glance flashes out under the sky.
storm, cyclone
of fury,
above my heart without
stopping.
the tombs
root.
carries
off, wrecks,
scatters
your
The big trees on the other side of her, uprooted.
But you, cloudless
girl, question
of smoke, corn tassel.
You were what the wind was making
with illuminated
leaves.
Behind the nocturnal
ah, I can say nothing!
mountains,
white lily of conflagration,
You were made of everything.
Ansiedad que partiste mi pecho a cuchillazos,
es hora de seguir otto camino, donde ella no sonr'a.
Tempestad que enterr6 las campanas, turbio revuelo de tormentas
para qu tocarla ahora, para qu entristecerla.
Ay seguir el camino que se aleja de todo,
donde no est atajando la angustia, la muerte, el invierno,
con sus ojos abiertos entre el roc'o.
Longing
that sliced
it is time
to take
Storm
why
that buried
touch
my
breast
another
into pieces,
road,
on which
the bells, muddy
her now,
why
make
their
eyes
open
through
does
not
swirl of torments,
her sad.
Oh to follow the road that leads away
without
anguish,
death, winter waiting
with
she
the dew.
from everything,
along it
smile.
====
XII
Para
Para
rni
mi coraz6n

corazdn
basra tu pecho,
para tu libertad bastan mis alas.
Desde mi boca llegard hasta el cielo
Io que estaba dormido sobre tu alma.
Es en ti la ilusi6n de cada
d'a.
Liegas como el roclo alas corolas.
Socavas
Eternamente
el horizonte
con tu ausencia.
en fuga como
la ola.
He dicho que cantabas en el viento
como los pinos y como los rodstiles.
Como ellos eres alta y taciturna.
Y entristeces de pronto, como un viaje.
Acogedora
como
un viejo camino.
Te pueblan ecos y voces nost,lgicas.
Yo despertg y a veces emigran y huyen
p,jaros que dorm(an en tu alma.
'Yaur 2Breast Is nough
Your breast is enough
for my heart,
and my wings
for your freedom.
What
was sleeping
above your soul will rise
out
of my
mouth
to heaven.
In you is the illusion of each day.
You arrive like the dew to the cupped
You undermine
the horizon
with your
Eternally
in flight
I have
said that you
like the pines
and
flowers.
absence.
like the wave.
sang
in the wind
like the masts.
Like them you are tall and taciturn,
and you are sad, all at once, like a voyage.
You
gather
things
to you
like an old road.
You are peopled
with echoes
and nostalgic
I awoke
and at times birds fled and migrated
that had been sleeping
in your soul.
voices.
l-re ido rrtavcando
He ido marcando
el atlas blanco
con cruces
de fuego
de tu cuerpo.
Mi boca era una araa que cruzaba escondi(ndose.
En ti, detr,s de ti, temerosa, sedienta.
Historias
que contarte a la orilla del crepasculo,
mueca triste y dulce, para que no estuvieras
Un cisne, un drbol, algo lejano y alegre.
El tiempo de las uvas, el tiempo madufo
triste.
y frutal.
Yo que viv' en un puerto desde donde te amaba.
La soledad
Acorralado
Callado,
cruzada de sueo y de silencio.
entre el mar y la tristeza.
delirante, entre dos gondoleros
inm6viles.
Entre los labios y la voz, algo se va muriendo.
Algo con alas de p,jaro, algo de angustia y de olvido.
As' como
las redes no retienen
el agua.
Mueca m(a, apenas quedan gotas ten4blando.
Sin embargo algo canta entre estas palabras fugaces.
Algo canta, algo sube hasta mi dvida boca.
Oh poder celebrarte con todas las palabras
de alegr'a.
I tave
I have
gone
with
marking
crosses
one
4ar:ing
the atlas of your
My mouth
went across: a spider,
In you, behind
you, timid, driven
Stories to tell
sad and gentle
A swan, a tree,
The season
of
I who
lived
in a harbor
Soundless,
and
The
trying to hide.
by thirst.
you on the shore of evening,
doll, so that you should
not be sad.
something
far away and happy.
grapes,
the ripe and fruitful season.
The solitude
crossed
Penned
up between
Between
Something
body
of fire.
delirious,
from
which
with dream
the sea and
between
I loved
and with
sadness.
two
you.
silence.
motionless
gondoliers.
the lips and the voice something
goes
with the wings of a bird, something
oblivion.
way
nets
cannot
hold
water.
My toy doll, only a few drops are left trembling.
Even so, something
sings in these fugitive
words.
Something
sings, something
climbs
to my ravenous
Oh
dying.
of anguish
to be able to celebrate
you
with
all the words
mouth.
of joy.
Cantar, arder, huir, como un campanario
en las manos
Triste ternura mia, qu te haces de repente?
Cuando he llegado al vrtice mds atrevido y fr'o
mi co'a6
s ci''a como
t fio'
de un loco.
Sing, burn, flee, like a belfry at the hands
My sad tenderness,
what comes
over you
of a madman.
all at once?
When
and
I have
reached
the
most
awesome
summit
my
heart
closes
like a nocturnal
flower.
the
coldest

Juegas
XIV

todo los dias
Juegas todos los dfas con la luz del universo.
Sutil visitadora, llegas en la fior y en el agua.
Eres mds que esta blanca cabecita que aprleto
como un racimo entre mis manos cada dfa.
A nadie te pareces desde que yote arno.
Djame tenderte entre guirnaldas amarillas.
Quid4 escribe tu nombre con letras de humo entre las estrellas del sur?
Ah djame recordarte c6mo eras entonces, cuando an no existfas.
De pronto el viento alla y golpea mi ventana cerrada.
El cielo es una red cuajada
de peces sombr'os.
Aquf vienen a dar todos los vientos, todos.
Se desviste
Pasan
la 11uvia.
huyendo
El viento.
los pdjaros.
El viento.
Yo sIo puedo luchar contra la fuerza de los hombres.
El temporal
arremolina
hojas oscuras
y suelta toda las barcas que anoche amarraron al cielo.
Every
Every
Subtle
)ay
day you play with
visitor, you arrive
lay
the light of the universe.
in the flower and the water.
You are more than this white head that I hold tightly
as a cluster of fruit, every day, between
my hands.
You are like nobody
Let me spread you
Who
since I love you.
out among
yellow
writes your name
of the
Oh
south?
let me remember
garlands.
in letters of smoke
you as you were
before
among
the stars
you existed.
Suddenly
the wind howls and bangs at my shut window.
The sky is a net crammed
with shadowy
fish.
Here all the winds let go sooner or later, all of them.
The
rain
takes
off her
The
birds
go by, fleeing.
The
wind.
The
I can contend
The
storm
wind.
only
whirls
clothes.
against
dark
and turns loose all the boats
the
sky.
the power
of men.
leaves
that were
moored
last night to
T estds aquf. Ah t no huyes.
T me responderds hasta el ltimo grito.
OvAlate
a mi lado como si tuvieras toledo.
Sin embargo
alguna
vez corri6 una sombra
extraa
pot tus ojos.
Ahora, ahora tambin, pequea, me traes madreselvas,
y tienes hasta los senos perfumados.
Mientras
el viento triste galopa
matando
mariposas
yote arno, y mi alegrt'a muerde tu boca de ciruela.
Cuanto
te babrd
dolido
acostumbrarte
a mi alma sola y salvaje, a mi nombre
Hemos
a m
que todos ahuyentan.
visto arder tantas veces el lucero besdndonos
los ojos
y sobre nuestras cabezas destorcerse los crepasculos en abanicos
gitantes.
Mis palabras llovieron sobre ti acaricidndote.
Am desde hace tiempo tu cuerpo de ndcar soleado.
Hasta
te creo dueaa
del universo.
Te traer de las montaaas fiores a legres, copihues,
avelianas oscuras, y cestas silvestres de besos.
Quiero
hacer
contigo
lo que la primavera
hace con los cerezos.
You are here. Oh, you do not run away.
You will answer me to the last cry.
Cling to me as though you were frightened.
Even so, at one time a strange shadow ran through your eyes.
Now, now too, little one, you bring me honeysuckle,
and
even
While
your
breasts
the sad wind
smell
of it.
goes slaughtering
I love you, and my happiness
butterflies
bites the plum of your mouth.
How you must have suffered getting accustomed
my savage,
solitary
soul, my name
that sends
to me,
them'all
running.
So many times we have seen the morning
star burn, kissing
and over our heads the grey light unwind
in turning
our
My
eyes,
words
rained
over you, stroking
you.
A long time I have loved the sunned
mother-of-pearl
I go so far as to think
that you
the universe.
I will bring you happy
flowers from the mountains,
body.
dark
hazels,
and
rustic
baskets
own
fans.
of kisses.
of your
bluebells,
I want
to do with you what
spring
does with the cherry
trees.
gustas cuando
callas
Me gustas cuando callas porque estds como ausente,
y me oyes desde lejos, y mi voz no te toca.
Parece que los ojos se te hubieran volado
y parece que un beso te cerrara la boca.
Como
todas las cosas estdn 11enas de mi alma
emerges de las cosas, llena del alma tufa.
Mariposa de sueo, te pareces a mi alma,
y te pareces a la palabra melancol'a.
Me gustas cuando callas y estds como distante.
Y estds como quejdndote, mariposa en arrullo.
Y me oyes desde lejos, y mi voz no te alcanza:
Djame que me calle con el silencio tuyo.
D(jame que te hable tambin con tu silencio
claro como una Idmpara, simple como un anillo.
Eres como la noche, callada y constelada.
Tu silencio es de estrella, tan lejano y sencillo.
I like for you to be still: it is as though
and you hear me from
touch
It seems
you.
as though
far away
you were absent,
and my voice
does
your eyes had flown away
and it seems
that a kiss had sealed
As
you
You
and
are filled with my soul
from the things, filled with my soul.
my soul, a butterfly of dream,
like the word Melancholy.
all things
emerge
are like
you are
your
I like for you to be still, and you seem
It sounds
like
And
as though
a dove.
you:
Let me come
And
you were lamenting,
you hear me from
reach
not
far away,
to be still in your
let me talk to you with
your
mouth.
far away.
a butterfly cooing
and my voice
does
silence.
silence
that is bright as a lamp, simple as a ring.
You are like the night, with its stillness and constellations.
Your silence is that of a star, as remote
and candid.
not
_Me gustas cuando callas porque estds como ausente
Distante y dolorosa como si hubieras muerto.
Una palabra entonces, una sonflsa bastan.
Y estoy alegre, alegre de que no sea cierto.
I like for you to be still: it is as though
you were absent,
distant and full of sorrow as though you had died.
One word then, one smile, is enough.
And
I am happy,
happy
that it's not true.

XVI

n mi cielo al crepSsculo
Este poema
es una parfifrasis del poema
El jardinero de Rabindranath
Tagore.
En mi cielo al creMsculo
30 de
eres como una nube
y tu color yforma son como yo los quiero.
Eres m'a, eres re(a, mujer de lablos dulces
y viven en tu vida mis infinitos sueos.
La l,mpara de m alma te sonrosa los pies,
el agrio vino mo es m,s dulce en tus lablos,
oh segadora de mi canci6n de atardecer,
c6mo te sienten ma mis sueos solitarios:
Eres mk, eres re(a, voy gritando en la brisa
de la tarde, y el viento artastra mi voz viuda.
Cazadora
del fondo de mis ojos, tu robo
estanca como el agua tu mirada
En la red de mi msica
nocturna.
estds presa, amor m'o,
y mis redes de msica son anchas como elcielo.
Mi alma nace a la orilla de tus ojos de luto.
En tus ojos de luto comienza el pa(s del sueo.
'

60


XVI
In
This poem is a paraphrase
in Rabindranath
Tagore

at -wilight
of the 3oth poem
The Gardener.
In my sky at twilight
you are like a cloud
and your form and color are the way ! love them.
You are mine,
mine,
woman
with sweet
lips
and in your life my infinite
dreams
live.
The lamp of my soul dyes your feet,
My sour wine is sweeter
on your lips,
oh reaper
of my evening
song,
how solitary
dreams
believe
you to be mine!
You are mine,
mine,
I go shouting
it to the afternoon's
wind,
and the wind
hauls on my widowed
voice.
Huntress
of the depths
of my eyes, your plunder
stills your nocturnal
regard
as though
it were water.
You are taken
in the net of my music,
and my nets of music
are wide as the
My soul is born on the shore
of your
In your eyes of mourning
the land of
my love,
sky.
eyes of mourning.
dreams
begins.
ensando,
enredando
sorrtbras
Pensando, enredando sombras en la profunda soledad.
T tambi(n estds lejos, ah rods lejos que nadie.
Pensando,
soltando
enterrando
Umparas.
pdjaros,
desvaneciendo
iredgenes,
Campanario de brumas, qu( lejos, alU arriba.
Ahogando lamentos, moliendo esperanzas sorehr,'as,
molinero
taciturno,
sete viene de bruces la noche, lejos de la ciudad.
Tu presencia
Pienso, camino
es ajena, extraa
largamente,
a m; como
una cosa.
mi vida antes de ti.
Mi vida antes de nadie, mi dspera
vida.
El grito frente al mar, entre las piedras,
corriendo
libre, loco, en el vaho
del mar.
La furia triste, el grito, la soledad del mar.
Desbocado,
violento, estirado hacia el cielo.
T, mujer, qu( eras all, qu raya, qu( varilla
de ese abanico
inmenso?
Estabas
lejos como
ahora.
Incendio en el bosque. Arde en cruces azules.
Arde, arde, llamea, chispea en drboles de luz.
'T'hi. ki.g, angling.Shadows
Thinking,
tangling shadows
in the deep solitude.
You are far away too, oh farther than anyone.
Thinking,
freeing birds, dissolving images,
burying
Belfry
lamps.
of fogs, how
Stifling laments,
taciturn
far away,
milling
miller,
up there!
shadowy
hopes,
night falls on you face downward,
far from the city.
Your presence is foreign, as strange to me as a thing.
I think, I explore great tracts of my life before you.
My
life before
anyone,
my harsh
The shout
facing the sea, among
Headlong,
violent,
running
free, mad, in the sea-spray.
The sad rage, the shout, the solitude
stretched
life.
the rocks,
towards
of the sea.
the sky.
You, woman,
what were you there, what ray, what vane
of that immense
fan? You were as far as you are now.
Fire in the forest!
Burn
Burn, burn,
up, sparkle
flame
in blue
crosses.
in trees of light.
Se derrumba,
Y mi alma
Quinn
crepita. Incendio.
baila herida
llama?
Incendio.
de virutas
Qu silencio poblado
defuego.
de ecos?
Hora de la nostalgia, hora de la alegr,'a, hora de la soledad,
hora
ma
entre todas!
Bocina en que el viento pasa cantando.
Tanta pasin de llanto anudada a mi cuerpo.
Sacudida
de todas las ra'ces,
asalto de todas las olas!
Rodaba,
Pensando,
Qui'n
alegre, triste interminable,
enterrando
eres t, qui&
ldmparas
eres?
mi alma.
en la profunda
soledad.
It collapses, crackling.
Fire. Fire.
And my soul dances, seared with curls of fire.
Who calls? What silence peopled with echoes?
Hour of nostalgia, hour of happiness, hour of solitude,
hour
that is mine
Hunting
of weeping
of all the
all!
tied to my body.
waves!
soul wandered,
Thinking,
Who
them
of all the roots,
attack
My
among
horn through which the wind passes singing.
Such a passion
Shaking
from
happy,
burying
are you,
lamps
who
are you?
sad, unending.
in the deep
solitude.
oIqu(
Aqu;
te arno
te arno.
En los oscuros pinos se desenreda el viento.
Fosforece la luna sobre las aguas errantes.
Andan d'as iguales persiguindose.
Se descite
la niebla
en danzantes
figuras.
Una gaviota de plata se descuelga del ocaso.
A veces una vela. Altas,
altas, estrellas.
0 la cruz negra de un barco.
Solo.
A veces amanezco,
Suena,
y hasta mi alma estd hameda.
resuena
el mar lejano.
ste es un puerto.
Aqul
te arno.
Aqul te arno yen vano te ocutta el horizonte.
Te estoy amando an entre estas fffas cosas.
A veces van mis besos en esos barcos
graves,
que corren por el mar hacia donde no Ilegan.
Ya me veo olvidado como estas viejas anclas.
Son rods triste los muelles cuando atraca la tarde.
Se fatiga mi vida intilmente hambrienta.
Arno Io que no tengo. Estgs ta tan distante.
Mi hasffo forcejea con los lentos crepsculos.
Pero la noche
Ilega y comienza
a cantarme.

xvIII

b-f ere I lve
Here
I love
you.
In the dark
pines
the wind
The moon
glows
like phosphorus
Days,
all one
kind,
disentangles
go chasing
The snow unfurls
in dancing
A silver gull slips down
from
Sometimes
a sail. High,
high
Oh
%u
the black
cross
each
itself.
on the vagrant
other.
figures.
the west.
stars.
of a ship.
Alone.
Sometimes
I get up early
Far away
the sea sounds
This is a port.
Here
I love you.
and
and
even
my
soul
is wet.
resounds.
Here I love you and the horizon
hides you in vain.
I love you still among
these cold things.
Sometimes
my kisses go on those heavy
vessels
that
cross
the
sea
towards
I see myself
forgotten
The piers sadden
when
My
I love
life grows
what
tired,
I do
not
My loathing
wrestles
But night comes
and
no
arrival.
like those
old
the afternoon
hungry
have.
with
starts
anchors.
moors
to no purpose.
You
are
so far.
the slow twilights.
to sing to me.
there.
waters.
La luna hace girar su rodaje de sueo.
Me miran con tus ojos las estrellas rods grandes.
Y como yote arno, los pinos en el viento,
quieren cantar tu nombre con sus hojas de alambre.
The
moon
The
And
biggest
stars look at me with your eyes.
as I love you, the pines in the wind
want
to sing
turns
your
its clockwork
name
dream.
with
their
leaves
of wire.

XIX
Xiha

morena
y dgil
Nia morena y cgil, el sol que hace las frutas,
el que cuaja los trigos, el que tuerce las algas,
hizo tu cuerpo alegre, tus luminosos
ojos
y tu boca que tiene la sonrisa del agua.
Un sol negro y ansioso se
de la negra roelena, cuando
T juegas con el sol como
y I te deja en los ojos dos
te arrolla en las hebras
estiras los brazos.
con un estero
oscuros remansos.
Niga morena y cgil, nada hacia ti me acerca.
Todo de ti me aleja, como del mediodla.
Eres la delirante juventud de la abeja,
la embriaguez
Mi coraz6n
de la ola, la fuerza
sombr;o
te busca,
de la espiga.
sin embargo,
y arno tu cuerpo alegre, tu voz suelta y delgada.
Mariposa
morena dulce y definitiva
como el trigal y el sol, la amapola y el agua.

XIX
irl the
Girl lithe and
tawny,

and wny
the sun that
forms
the fruits, that plumps
filled your body with
the grains, that curls seaweeds
joy, and your luminous
eyes
and
has
your
mouth
A black
yearning
of your
black
You
play
that
sun
mane,
with
and it leaves
smile
is braided
when
the
two
the
sun
dark
into
you
as with
pools
of the
stretch
water.
the strands
your
arms.
a little brook
in your
eyes.
Girl lithe and tawny, nothing
draws me towards
you.
Everything
bears me farther away, as though
you were noon.
You are the frenzied
youth of the bee,
the drunkenness
of the wave, the power
of the wheat-ear.
My somber
heart searches
for you, nevertheless,
and I love your joyful body, your slender
and
Dark
butterfly,
like the wheat-field
sweet
and
and
flowing
voice.
definitive
the sun, the poppy
and
the water.
uedo
Puedo
escribir
escribir
los versos
rods tristes esta nocbe.
Escribir pot ejemplo: ((La nocbe estd estrellada,
y tiritan, azules, los astros, a lo lejos. 
El viento de la nocbe gira en el cielo y canta.
Puedo
escribir
los vetsos rods tristes esta noche.
Yo la quise, y a veces ella tambi(n
En las noches
como
me quiso.
sta la tuve entre mis brazos.
Le best tantas veces bajo el cielo infinito.
Ella me quiso, a veces yo tambin la queria.
C6mo no haber areado sus grandes ojos fijos.
Puedo
escribir
los vetsos m,s tristes esta noche.
Pensat que no la tengo. Sentit que la he perdido.
Oir la noche inmensa,
Y el verso cae al alma
rods inmensa sin ella.
como al pasto el roc'o.
night
Tonight
I can
Write,
write
for example,
and
the
stars
The
night
the
saddest
"The
are blue
wind
I On
and
revolves
qrite
lines.
night
is starry
shiver
in the
distance."
in the sky and sings.
Tonight
I loved
I can write the
her, and sometimes
Through
I kissed
nights like this one I held her in my
her again and again under the endless
She
loved
How
Tonight
To think
me,
could
one
I can
that
sometimes
not have
saddest
she
I loved
loved
lines.
loved
her
me
arms.
sky.
too.
her great
write the saddest
lines.
I do not have
her. To feel
too.
still eyes.
that
! have
lost
To hear the immense
night, still more
immense
without
And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture.
her.
her.
Qu importa
La noche
que mi amor no pudiera guardaria.
estd estrellada
y ella no estd conmigo.
Eso es todo. A Io lejos alguien
Mi alma
Como
no se contenta
para acercarla
Mi corazdn
La misma
Nosotros,
canta. A lo lejos.
con haberla
mi mirada
la busca,
perdido.
la busca.
y ella no estd conmigo.
noche que hace blanquear
los mismos drboles.
los de entonces, ya no somos los mismos.
Ya no la quiero, es cierto, pero cudnto la quise.
Mi voz buscaba
el viento para tocar su ofdo.
De otto. Serd
de otto.
Su voz, su cuerpo
Como
antes
de mis besos.
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
mi alma
en noches
como
no se contenta
sta la tuve entre mis brazos,
con haberla
perdido.
Aunque ste sea el ltimo dolor que ella me causa,
y stos sean los Itimos versos que yo le escribo.
What
The
This
does
night
it matter
that
is starry
and
my
she
is all. In the distance
is not
satisfied
love
is not
could
someone
that
not keep
with
is singing.
it has
her.
me.
My
soul
lost
My
My
sight
heart
The
We,
same night whitening
the same trees.
of that time, are no longer
the same.
In the distance.
her.
tries to find her as though
to bring her closer.
looks for her, and she is not with me.
I no longer
My voice
love her, that's certain,
but how
I loved
her.
tried to find the wind to touch
her hearing.
Another's.
Her voice,
She will be another's.
As she was before
her bright
body.
Her infinite
eyes.
I no longer
love
Love is so short,
her, that's
forgetting
Because
nights
my
through
soul
Though
and
is not
satisfied
certain,
but maybe
is so long.
like this one
that
this be the last pain
these
the
last
verses
that
it has
lost
that
she
I write
I held
my
I love
her
in my
me
suffer
her.
makes
for
her.
kisses.
her.
arms
cancidn
Emerge
tu recuerdo
deses?erada
de la nocbe en clue estoy.
El r;o anuda
al mar su lamento
Abandonado
como
los muelles
obstinado.
en el alba.
Es la hora de partir, oh abandonado.
Sobre mi coraz6n llueven fr'as corolas.
Oh sentina de escombros, feroz cueva de n,ufragos.
En ti se acumularon
las guerras y los vuelos.
De ti alzaron las alas los p,jaros del canto.
Todo te Io tragaste, como la lejan'a.
Como el mar, como el tiempo. Todo en tifue naufragio;
Era la alegre hora del asalto y el beso.
La hora del estupor que ardt'a como un faro.
Ansiedad
de piloto, furia de buzo ciego,
turbia embriaguez
de amor, todo en tifue naufragio!
En la infancia de niebla mi alma alada y herida.
Descubridor
perdido, todo en tifue naufragio.
fie .Song of )epair
The memory
of you emerges from the night around me.
The river mingles
Deserted
its stubborn
like the wharves
lament with the sea.
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
It was
The
the happy
hour
of assault
of the spell that blazed
Pilot's dread,
turbulent
hour
fury of a blind
drunkenness
In the childhood
Lost discoverer,
and
sank!
the kiss.
like a lighthouse.
diver,
of love, in you everything
of mist my soul, winged
in you everything
sank!
sank!
and wounded.
Te ceiste al dolor, te agarraste al deseo,
te tumb6 la tristeza, todo en ti fue naufragio!
Hice
anduve
retroceder
la muralla
de sombra,
rods alia del deseo y del acto.
Oh carne, carne ma, mujer que am( y perd,
a ti en esta hora hameda,
evoco y hago
Como
la infinita ternura,
un vaso albergaste
canto.
y el infinito olvido te triz6 como a un vaso.
Era la negra, negra soledad de las islas,
y all',mujer de amor, me acogieron tus brazos.
Era la sed y el hambre, y ta fuiste la fruta.
Era el duelo y las ruinas, y ta fuiste el milagro.
Ah mujer, no s( c6mo pudiste contenerme
en la tierra de tu alma, yen la cruz de tus brazos.
Mis deseo de tifue el rods terrible y corto,
el rods revuelto y ebrio, el rods titante y avido.
Cementerio
de besos, aan hay fuego en tus turnbas,
aan los racimos
arden picoteados
de pajaros.
You girdled sorrow, you clung to desire,
sadness stunned you, in you everything
sank!
! made
the wall of shadow
beyond
desire
and
draw
act, I walked
back,
on.
Oh flesh, my own flesh, woman
whom I loved and lost,
I summon
you in the moist hour, ! raise my song to you.
Like
a jar you
housed
the infinite
and the infinite oblivion
There
and
There
There
was the black
there,
were
were
Ah woman,
in the earth
woman
shattered
solitude
of love,
tenderness.
your
you like a jar.
of the islands,
arms
took
me
in.
thirst and hunger,
and you were the fruit.
grief and the ruins, and you were the miracle.
I do not know how you could contain
me
of your soul, in the cross of your arms!
How
terrible
and brief was my desire
How
difficult
and
drunken,
how
tensed
of you!
and
avid.
Cemetery
of kisses, there is still fire in your tombs,
still the fruited boughs
burn, pecked
at by birds.
Oh
la boca
mordida,
oh los hambrientos,
oh los besados
miembros,
dientes, oh los cuerpos
trenzados.
Oh la c6pula loca de esperanza y esfuerzo
en que nos anudamos
y nos desesperamos.
Y la ternura,
leve como
el agua
Y la palabra
apenas comenzada
y la harina.
en los labios.
Ese fue mi destino yen elviaj6 mi anhelo,
yen elcay mi anhelo, todo en tifue naufragio!
Oh, sentina
de escombros,
en ti todo ca'a,
qu dolor no exprimiste, qu dolor no te ahoga.
De tumbo
en tumbo
an
De pie como un marino
An fioreciste en cantos,
Oh sentina de escombros,
llamaste
y cantaste.
en la proa de un barco.
an rompiste en corrientes.
pozo abierto y areargo.
Pdlido buzo ciego, desventurado
hondero,
descubridor perdido, todo en tifue naufragio!
Oh the bitten mouth,
oh the hungering
Oh the mad coupling
in which we merged
And
And
oh the kissed limbs,
teeth, oh the entwined
bodies.
of hope and force
and despaired.
the tenderness,
light as water and as flour.
the word scarcely begun on the lips.
This was my destiny and in it was the voyage
and in it my longing
Oh
pit of debris,
what sorrow
drowned!
From
Standing
You
Oh
billow
fell, in you everything
everything
fell into you,
did you not express,
to billow
like a sailor
still flowered
pit of debris,
in what sorrow
you still called
in the prow
in songs,
open
and
of my longing,
sank!
and sang.
of a vessel.
you still broke
bitter well.
Pale blind diver, luckless
slinger,
lost discoverer,
in you everything
are you not
sank!
in currents.
Es la hora de partit, la dura y fr(a hora
que la noche sujeta a todo horatio.
El cintur6n
ruidoso
del mar cite la costa.
Surgen fr'as estrellas, emigran
negros pijaros.
Abandonado
en el alba.
S61o
la sombra
como
tr(mula
los muelles
se retuerce
en mis manos.
Ah mds alli de todo. Ah mds alld de todo.
Es la hora de partit. Oh abandonado;
It is the hour of departure, the hard cold hour
which the night fastens to all the timetables.
The rustling belt of the sea girdles the shore.
Cold stars heave up, black birds migrate.
Deserted
Only
like the wharves
the tremulous
shadow
at dawn.
twists in my hands.
Oh farther than everything. Oh farther than everything.
It is the hour
of departure.
Oh abandoned
one!
Selected
A list of the principal
of their first appearance
works
Sib liograp hy
of Pablo
Neruda
with the dates
La canclan de lafiesta (Ediciones Juventud, Santiago, 1921 )
Crepusculario (Editorial Claridad, Santiago, 1923)
Viente poemas de amory una canciSn desesperada (Nascimento,
Santiago,
1924)
ntativa del hombre infinito (Nascimento,
E1 habitante y su esperanza (Nascimento,
Anillos (Nascimento,
Santiago,
Santiago,
Santiago,
1926)
1925-26)
1925-26)
El hondero entusiasta (Empresa Letras, Santiago, 1933)
Residencia en la tierra 1925-1931 (Nascimento,
Santiago, 1933)
Residencia en la tierra t925-t935 (Cruz y Raya, Madrid, 1935)
rcera residencia 1935-1945 (Losaria, Buenos Aires, 1947)
Canto general (Private Edition and Editorial Ocano,
Mexico,
1950)
Los versos del capitdn (Private Edition, Naples, 1952)
Las uvas y el viento (Nascimento,
Santiago,
1954)
Odas elementales (Losaria, Buenos Aires, 1954)
Neuvas odas elementales (Losada, Buenos Aires, 1956)
rcer libro de odas (Losada, Buenos Aires, 1957)
Obras completas (Losaria, Buenos Aires, 1957; rev. and augrn.,
1962)
Estravagario
(Losaria,
Buenos
Aires,
1958)
Navegaciones
y regresos (Losada,
Cien soneros de amor (Private
Buenos
Aires,
Buenos
Edition,
Aires, 1959)
Santiago
and Losada,
1959)
Cantos ceremoniales (Losada,
Buenos Aires, 1961 )
Plenos poderes (Losada, Buenos Aires, 1962)
Memorial de Isla Negra (Losada,
Buenos
Aires, 1964)
EDITOR'S
NOTE:
There
is uncertainty,
to some
details
of Neruda's
bibliography.
even
among
experts,
as
5u,ggeationajr further x,e.ading
Bestiary.
Trans.
Elsa Neuberger.
World.
1965.
New York: Harcourt Brace &
The Heights ofRlaccbu Piccbu. Trans. Nathaniel Tarn. New York:
Farrar,
Straus
and
Giroux.
Twenty Poems. Trans. Robert Bly, John Knoepfle, and James
Wright.
Boston,
Mass.: Beacon
Press. 1967.
Neruda and Vallqo: Selected Poems. Trans. Robert Bly, John
Knoepfle,
1971.
and James Wright.
Boston, Mass: Beacon
Press.
The Captain} lrses. Trans. Donald
D. Walsh. New
York: New
Residence on Earth. Trans. Donald
D. Walsh.
York: New
Directions.
1972.
Directions.
1973.
New
Extravagaria. Trans. Alastair Reid. New York: Farrar, Straus and
Giroux.
! 974.
Fully Empowered. Trans. Alastair Reid. New York: Farrar, Straus,
and
Giroux.
1975.
Song of Protest. Trans. Miguel
row.
Algafin.
New
York: William
Mor-
1976.
A Call for the Destruction of Nixon and Praise for the Chilean Revolution. Trans. Teresa Anderson.
Cambridge,
Mass.: West End
Press.
1980.
Isla Negra: A Notebook. Trans. Alastair Reid. New
Straus
and
Giroux.
1981.
York: Farrar,
Art of Birds. Trans. Jack Schmitt. Austin: University of Texas
Press.
1985.
One Hundred Love Sonnets. Trans. Stephen Tapscott. Austin: University
of Texas
White
Pine
Press.
1986.
The Stones of Chile. Trans. Dennis Maloney.
Press.
1986.
Fredonia, N.Y.:
Winter Garden. Trans. William O'Daly. Port Townsend,
Wash.:
Stones of the Sky. Trans. James Nolan. Port Townsend,
Wash.:
Copper
Canyon
Press.
1986.
Copper
Canyon
Press.
1987.
Wash.:
Copper
Canyon
Press.
1988.
Wash.:
Copper
Canyon
Press.
1990.
The Sea and the Bells. Trans. William O'Daly. Port Townsend,
The Yellow Heart. Trans. William
O'Daly.
Selected Odes of Pablo Neruda. Trans. Margaret
Berkeley:
University
of California
Port Townsend,
Sayers Peden.
Press. 1991.
The Book of Questions. Trans. William O'Daly. Port Townsend,
Wash.:
Copper
Canyon
Press.
1991.
Canto General. Trans. Jack Schmitt. Berkeley: University
California
Press.
1991.
2000. Trans. Richard Schaaf. Falls Church,
of
Va.: Azul Editions.
1993.
Seaquake. Trans. Mafia Jackertl and Dennis Maloney. Fredonia,
N.Y.:
White
Pine
Press.
1993.

94


Poets,
and
Award
and
the
Hawanan
for Literature
his
versions
among
of
of El Cid and
Governor:s
classics
such
The Song of Roland
was
and
grew
up
in New
author
of
Dreaming
m Cuban,
National
Book
and
has
Hodder
three
in
City.
She
nominated
Award,
and
Monk
N
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Havana
is the
Sisters,
for a
Hunting--
University,
Writers'
MICHELLE
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Poem
Fellow,
PENGUINBOOK POETRY
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The
Aguer0
was
of a Whiting
BY
WWW.
born
which
at Princeton
has
are standards.
a Guggenheim
Fellow
DESIGN
York
He
as
novels--The
been
the recipient
COVER
them.
[CS.C
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a
and
Award.