"Tonight I can write"

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

Write for example, 'The night is full of stars
and the blue stars shiver in the distance.'

The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

Through nights like these I held her in my arms.
I kissed her again and again under the endless sky.

She loved me, sometimes I loved her too.
How could one not have loved her great still eyes.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
To think I do not have her, to feel I have lost her.

To hear the immense night, still more immense without her.
And the verse falls to the soul like dew to a pasture.

What does it matter that my love could not keep her.
The night is full of stars and she is not with me.

That is all. Far away, someone sings. Far away.
My soul is lost without her.

As if to bring her near, my eyes search for her.
My heart searches for her and she is not with me.

The same night whitening the same trees.
We, we who were, we are the same no longer.

Surely I no longer love her, but how I once loved her.
My voice searched the wind to touch her ear.

Another's. She will be another's. As she once belonged to my kisses.
Her voice, her bright body. Her infinite eyes.

Surely I no longer love her, but maybe I love her.
Love is so short and forgetting so long.

Because on nights like these I held her in my arms,
my soul is lost without her.

Though this be the last pain she makes me suffer
and these the last verses I write for her.


Pablo Neruda

"Your Laughter"

Take bread away from me, if you wish,
take air away, but
do not take from me your laughter.

Do not take away the rose,
the lance flower that you pluck,
the water that suddenly
bursts forth in joy,
the sudden wave
of silver born in you.

My struggle is harsh and I come back
with eyes tired
at times from having seen
the unchanging earth,
but when your laughter enters
it rises to the sky seeking me
and it opens for me all
the doors of life.

My love, in the darkest
hour your laughter
opens, and if suddenly
you see my blood staining
the stones of the street,
laugh, because your laughter
will be for my hands
like a fresh sword.

Next to the sea in the autumn,
your laughter must raise
its foamy cascade,
and in the spring, love,
I want your laughter like
the flower I was waiting for,
the blue flower, the rose
of my echoing country.

Laugh at the night,
at the day, at the moon,
laugh at the twisted
streets of the island,
laugh at this clumsy
boy who loves you,
but when I open
my eyes and close them,
when my steps go,
when my steps return,
deny me bread, air,
light, spring,
but never your laughter
for I would die.


Pablo Neruda

translated by Donald Walsh