Section: «Poems»

Verse (ancient Greek ὁ στίχος — row, structure), a term in versification used in several meanings: artistic speech organized by division into rhythmically commensurate segments; poetry in the narrow sense; in particular, it implies the properties of versification of a particular tradition ("antique verse", "Akhmatova's verse", etc.); a line of poetic text organized according to a certain rhythmic pattern ("My uncle of the most honest rules").

Ode To Sadness

Sadness, scarabwith seven crippled feet,spiderweb egg,scramble-brained rat,bitch's skeleton:No entry here.Don't come in.Go away.Go backsouth with..

© Pablo Neruda

Leaning Into The Afternoons

Leaning into the afternoons I cast my sad netstowards your oceanic eyes.There in the highest blaze my solitude lengthens and flames,its arms turning..

© Pablo Neruda

We Are Many

Of the many men whom I am, whom we are,I cannot settle on a single one.They are lost to me under the cover of clothingThey have departed for another..

© Pablo Neruda

The Question

Love, a questionhas destroyed you.I have come back to youfrom thorny uncertainty.I want you straight asthe sword or the road.But you insiston keeping..

© Pablo Neruda

Absence

I have scarcely left youWhen you go in me, crystalline,Or trembling,Or uneasy, wounded by meOr overwhelmed with love, aswhen your eyesClose upon the..

© Pablo Neruda

Sonnet Xxv

Before I loved you, love, nothing was my own:I wavered through the streets, amongObjects:Nothing mattered or had a name:The world was made of air..

© Pablo Neruda

Water

Everything on the earth bristled, the bramblepricked and the green threadnibbled away, the petal fell, fallinguntil the only flower was the falling..

© Pablo Neruda

Fleas Interest Me So Much

Fleas interest me so muchthat I let them bite me for hours.They are perfect, ancient, Sanskrit,machines that admit of no appeal.They do not bite to..

© Pablo Neruda

Lost In The Forest...

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..

© Pablo Neruda

Sonnet Lxxxi

And now you're mine. Rest with your dream in my dream.Love and pain and work should all sleep, now.The night turns on its invisible wheels,and you..

© Pablo Neruda

From The Book Of Questions

III.Tell me, is the rose nakedor is that her only dress?Why do trees concealthe splendor of their roots?Who hears the regretsof the thieving..

© Pablo Neruda

‘perhaps Not To Be Is To Be Without Your Being.’

Perhaps not to be is to be without your being,without your going, that cuts noon lightlike a blue flower, without your passinglater through fog and..

© Pablo Neruda

Love

What's wrong with you, with us,what's happening to us?Ah our love is a harsh cordthat binds us wounding usand if we wantto leave our wound,to..

© Pablo Neruda

Brown And Agile Child

Brown and agile child, the sun which forms the fruitAnd ripens the grain and twists the seaweedHas made your happy body and your luminous eyesAnd..

© Pablo Neruda

Always

I am not jealousof what came before me.Come with a manon your shoulders,come with a hundred men in your hair,come with a thousand men between your..

© Pablo Neruda

Poetry

And it was at that age ... Poetry arrivedin search of me. I don't know, I don't know whereit came from, from winter or a river.I don't know how or..

© Pablo Neruda

Canto Xii From The Heights Of Macchu Picchu

Arise to birth with me, my brother.Give me your hand out of the depthssown by your sorrows.You will not return from these stone fastnesses.You will..

© Pablo Neruda

Saddest Poem

I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.Write, for instance: "The night is full of stars,and the stars, blue, shiver in the distance."The night..

© Pablo Neruda

The Saddest Poem

I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.Write, for instance: "The night is full of stars,and the stars, blue, shiver in the distance."The night..

© Pablo Neruda

Gentleman Alone

The young maricones and the horny muchachas,The big fat widows delirious from insomnia,The young wives thirty hours' pregnant,And the hoarse tomcats..

© Pablo Neruda

Fable Of The Mermaid And The Drunks

All those men were there inside,when she came in totally naked.They had been drinking: they began to spit.Newly come from the river, she knew..

© Pablo Neruda

‘carnal Apple, Woman Filled, Burning Moon,’

Carnal apple, Woman filled, burning moon,dark smell of seaweed, crush of mud and light,what secret knowledge is clasped between your pillars?What..

© Pablo Neruda

Nothing But Death

There are cemeteries that are lonely,graves full of bones that do not make a sound,the heart moving through a tunnel,in it darkness, darkness..

© Pablo Neruda

Your Feet

When I cannot look at your faceI look at your feet.Your feet of arched bone,your hard little feet.I know that they support you,and that your sweet..

© Pablo Neruda

Xvii (I Do Not Love You...)

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.I love you as certain dark things are to be..

© Pablo Neruda