148 Quotes & Sayings By Pablo Neruda

Pablo Neruda (April 27, 1904 - September 23, 1973) was a Nobel Prize in Literature laureate who became one of the most popular and influential poets in the Spanish language. He is also considered to be one of the most important figures in the Latin Americanist literature in world history.

1
I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you simply, without problems or pride: I love you in this way because I do not know any other way of loving but this, in which there is no I or you, so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand, so intimate that when I fall asleep your eyes close. Pablo Neruda
I love you as certain dark things are to be...
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I love you as certain dark things are to be loved, in secret, between the shadow and the soul. Pablo Neruda
Love is so short, forgetting is so long.
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Love is so short, forgetting is so long. Pablo Neruda
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Well, now If little by little you stop loving me I shall stop loving you Little by little If suddenly you forget me Do not look for me For I shall already have forgotten you If you think it long and mad the wind of banners that passes through my life And you decide to leave me at the shore of the heart where I have roots Remember That on that day, at that hour, I shall lift my arms And my roots will set off to seek another land . Pablo Neruda
I want to do with you what spring does with...
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I want to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees. Pablo Neruda
Tonight I can write the saddest lines I loved her,...
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Tonight I can write the saddest lines I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too. Pablo Neruda
7
I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair. Silent and starving, I prowl through the streets. Bread does not nourish me, dawn disrupts me, all day I hunt for the liquid measure of your steps. 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. I want to eat the sunbeam flaring in your lovely body, the sovereign nose of your arrogant face, I want to eat the fleeting shade of your lashes, and I pace around hungry, sniffing the twilight, hunting for you, for your hot heart, Like a puma in the barrens of Quitratue. Pablo Neruda
As if you were on fire from within. The moon...
8
As if you were on fire from within. The moon lives in the lining of your skin. Pablo Neruda
9
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 me I 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. Pablo Neruda
You are like nobody since I love you.
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You are like nobody since I love you. Pablo Neruda
11
Love.Because of you, in gardens of blossoming Flowers I ache from the perfumes of spring. I have forgotten your face, I no longer Remember your hands; how did your lips Feel on mine? Because of you, I love the white statues Drowsing in the parks, the white statues that Have 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 to My vague memory of you. I live with pain That is like a wound; if you touch me, you will Make to me an irreperable harm. Your caresses enfold me, like climbing Vines on melancholy walls. I have forgotten your love, yet I seem to Glimpse you in every window. Because of you, the heady perfumes of Summer pain me; because of you, I again Seek out the signs that precipitate desires: Shooting stars, falling objects. Pablo Neruda
12
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 wind whirls in the sky and sings. I can write the saddest poem of all tonight. I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too. On nights like this, I held her in my arms. I kissed her so many times under the infinite sky. She loved me, sometimes I loved her. How could I not have loved her large, still eyes? I can write the saddest poem of all tonight. To think I don't have her. To feel that I've lost her. To hear the immense night, more immense without her. And the poem falls to the soul as dew to grass. What does it matter that my love couldn't keep her. The night is full of stars and she is not with me. That's 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 that whitens the same trees. We, we who were, we are the same no longer. I no longer love her, true, but how much I loved her. My voice searched the wind to touch her ear. Someone else's. She will be someone else's. As she once belonged to my kisses. Her voice, her light body. Her infinite eyes. I no longer love her, true, but perhaps I love her. Love is so short and oblivion so long. Because on nights like this I held her in my arms, my soul is lost without her. Although this may be the last pain she causes me, and this may be the last poem I write for her. Pablo Neruda
In this part of the story I am the one...
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In this part of the story I am the one whodies, the only one, and I will die of love because I love you, because I love you, Love, in fire and in blood. Pablo Neruda
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Don't go far off, not even for a day, because I don't know how to say it - a day is longand I will be waiting for you, as inan empty station when the trains areparked off somewhere else, asleep. Don't leave me, even for an hour, because thenthe little drops of anguish will all run together, the smoke that roams looking for a home will driftinto me, choking my lost heart. Oh, may your silhouette never dissolveon the beach, may your eyelids never flutterinto the empty distance. Don't LEAVE me fora second, my dearest, because in that moment you'llhave gone so far I'll wander mazilyover all the earth, asking, will youcome back? Will you leave me here, dying?. Pablo Neruda
Then love knew it was called love. And when I...
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Then love knew it was called love. And when I lifted my eyes to your name, suddenly your heart showed me my way Pablo Neruda
I am no longer in love with her, that's certain,...
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I am no longer in love with her, that's certain, but maybe I love her. Love is so short, forgetting is so long. Pablo Neruda
And I, infinitesima­l being, drunk with the great starry void,...
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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. Pablo Neruda
18
I want you to knowone thing. You know how this is: if I look at the crystal moon, at the red branch of the slow autumn at my window, if I touch near the fire the impalpable ash or the wrinkled body of the log, everything carries me to you, as if everything that exists, aromas, light, metals, were little boats that sail toward those isles of yours that wait for me. Well, now, if little by little you stop loving me I shall stop loving you little by little. If suddenly you forget me do not look for me, for I shall already have forgotten you. If you think it long and mad, the wind of banners that passes through my life, and you decide to leave me at the shore of the heart where I have roots, remember that on that day, at that hour, I shall lift my arms and my roots will set off to seek another land. But if each day, each hour, you feel that you are destined for me with implacable sweetness, if each day a flower climbs 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 arms without leaving mine. Pablo Neruda
19
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 streets No one recognizes you. No one sees your crystal crown, no one looks At the carpet of red gold That you tread as you pass, The nonexistent carpet. And when you appear All the rivers sound In my body, bells Shake the sky, And a hymn fills the world. Only you and I, Only you and I, my love, Listen to it. Pablo Neruda
I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair. Silent and...
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I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair. Silent and starving, I prowl through the streets. Bread does not nourish me, dawn disrupts me, all day I hunt for the liquid measure of your steps. Pablo Neruda
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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 when I 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. . Pablo Neruda
Love! Love until the night collapses!
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Love! Love until the night collapses! Pablo Neruda
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With a chaste heart With pure eyes I celebrate your beauty Holding the leash of blood So that it might leap out and trace your outline Where you lie down in my Ode As in a land of forests or in surf In aromatic loam, or in sea music Beautiful nude Equally beautiful your feet Arched by primeval tap of wind or sound Your ears, small shells Of the splendid American sea Your breasts of level plentitude Fulfilled by living light Your flying eyelids of wheat Revealing or enclosing The two deep countries of your eyes The line your shoulders have divided into pale regions Loses itself and blends into the compact halves of an apple Continues separating your beauty down into two columns of Burnished gold Fine alabaster To sink into the two grapes of your feet Where your twin symmetrical tree burns again and rises Flowering fire Open chandelier A swelling fruit Over the pact of sea and earth From what materials Agate? 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 remained Astonished The fine and firm feminine form It is not only light that falls over the world spreading inside your body Yet suffocate itself So much is clarity Taking its leave of you As if you were on fire within The moon lives in the lining of your skin. Pablo Neruda
By night, Love, tie your heart to mine, and the...
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By night, Love, tie your heart to mine, and the two together in their sleep will defeat the darkness Pablo Neruda
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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. Pablo Neruda
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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! . Pablo Neruda
You can cut all the flowers but you cannot keep...
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You can cut all the flowers but you cannot keep Spring from coming. Pablo Neruda
Donde termina el arco iris, en tu alma o en...
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Donde termina el arco iris, en tu alma o en el horizonte? Where does the rainbow end, in your soul or on the horizon? Pablo Neruda
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Y por que el sol es tan mal amigodel caminante en el desierto? Y por que el sol es tan simpaticoen el jardin del hospital? And why is the sun such a bad companionto the traveler in the desert? And why is the sun so congenial in the hospital garden? Pablo Neruda
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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. Pablo Neruda
Absence is a house so vast that inside you will...
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Absence is a house so vast that inside you will pass through its walls and hang pictures on the air. Pablo Neruda
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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. Pablo Neruda
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We the mortals touch the metals, the wind, the ocean shores, the stones, knowing they will go on, inert or burning, and I was discovering, naming all the these things:it was my destiny to love and say goodbye. Pablo Neruda
It was at that agethat poetry came in search of...
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It was at that agethat poetry came in search of me. Pablo Neruda
I hunger for your sleek laugh and your hands the...
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I hunger for your sleek laugh and your hands the color of a furious harvest. I want to eat the sunbeams flaring in your beauty. Pablo Neruda
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The days aren't discarded or collected, they are beesthat burned with sweetness or maddenedthe sting: the struggle continues, the journeys go and come between honey and pain. No, the net of years doesn't unweave: there is no net. They don't fall drop by drop from a river: there is no river. Sleep doesn't divide life into halves, or action, or silence, or honor:life is like a stone, a single motion, a lonesome bonfire reflected on the leaves, an arrow, only one, slow or swift, a metalthat climbs or descends burning in your bones. . Pablo Neruda
Green was the silence, wet was the light, the month...
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Green was the silence, wet was the light, the month of June trembled like a butterfly. Pablo Neruda
I want to see thirst In the syllables, Tough fire...
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I want to see thirst In the syllables, Tough fire In the sound; Feel through the dark For the scream. Pablo Neruda
I don't want to go on being a root in...
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I don't want to go on being a root in the dark, vacillating, stretched out, shivering with sleep, downward, in the soaked guts of the earth, absorbing and thinking, eating each day. Pablo Neruda
Love is a clash of lightnings
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Love is a clash of lightnings Pablo Neruda
Poetry is an act of peace. Peace goes into the...
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Poetry is an act of peace. Peace goes into the making of a poet as flour goes into the making of bread. Pablo Neruda
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Each in the most hidden sack keptthe lost jewels of memory, intense love, secret nights and permanent kisses, the fragment of public or private happiness. A few, the wolves, collected thighs, other men loved the dawn scratchingmountain ranges or ice floes, locomotives, numbers. For me happiness was to share singing, praising, cursing, crying with a thousand eyes. I ask forgiveness for my bad ways:my life had no use on earth. . Pablo Neruda
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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. Pablo Neruda
I love all things, not only the grand but the...
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I love all things, not only the grand but the infinitely small: thimble, spurs, plates, flower vases..... Pablo Neruda
Quiero hacer contigo lo que la primavera hace con los...
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Quiero hacer contigo lo que la primavera hace con los cerezos Pablo Neruda
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Tonight I can write the saddest lines. Write, for example, ' The night is shatteredand 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 this one I held her in my arms I kissed her again and again under the endless sky. She loved me sometimes, and I loved her too. How could one not have loved her great still eyes. Tonight I can write the saddest lines. To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her. To hear the immense night, still more immense without her. And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture. What does it matter that my love could not keep her. The night is shattered and she is not with me. This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance. My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her. My sight searches for her as though to go to her. My heart looks for her, and she is not with me. The same night whitening the same trees. We, of that time, are no longer the same. I no longer love her, that's certain, but how I loved her. My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing. Another's. She will be another's. Like my kisses before. Her voide. Her bright body. Her inifinite eyes. I no longer love her, that's certain, but maybe I love her. Love is so short, forgetting is so long. Because through nights like this one I held her in my armsmy sould is not satisfied that it has lost her. Though this be the last pain that she makes me sufferand these the last verses that I write for her. . Pablo Neruda
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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. . Pablo Neruda
I grew up in this town, my poetry was born...
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I grew up in this town, my poetry was born between the hill and the river, it took its voice from the rain, and like the timber, it steeped itself in the forests. Pablo Neruda
Our love was bornoutside the walls, in the wind, in...
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Our love was bornoutside the walls, in the wind, in the night, in the earth, and that's why the clay and the flower, the mud and the rootsknow your name. Pablo Neruda
So the freshness lives onin a lemon, in the sweet-smelling...
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So the freshness lives onin a lemon, in the sweet-smelling house of the rind, the proportions, arcane and acerb. Pablo Neruda
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Ya no la quiero, es cierto, pero tal vez la quiero. Es tan corto el amor, y es tan largo el olvido. Pablo Neruda
Escóndeme en tus brazospor esta noche sola, mientras la lluvia...
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Escóndeme en tus brazospor esta noche sola, mientras la lluvia rompecontra el mar y la tierrasu boca innumerable. Pablo Neruda
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I stalk certain words.. I catch them in mid-flight, as they buzz past, I trap them, clean them, peel them, I set myself in front of the dish, they have a crystalline texture to me, vibrant, ivory, vegetable, oily, like fruit, like algae, like agates, like olives.. I stir them, I shake them, I drink them, I gulp them down, I mash them, I garnish them.. I leave them in my poem like stalactites, like slivers of polished wood, like coals, like pickings from a shipwreck, gifts from the waves.. Everything exists in the word. Pablo Neruda
La heradera del dia destruida.( The heiress of the destroyed...
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La heradera del dia destruida.( The heiress of the destroyed day.) Pablo Neruda
A book, a book fullof human touches, of shirts, a...
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A book, a book fullof human touches, of shirts, a bookwithout loneliness, with menand tools, a bookis victory. Pablo Neruda
Soy el desesperado, la palabra sin ecos, el que lo...
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Soy el desesperado, la palabra sin ecos, el que lo perdiò todo, y el que todo lo tuvo. Pablo Neruda
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De pronto no puedo decirtelo que yo te debo decir, hombre, perdóname; sabrásque aunque no escuches mis palabrasno me eché a llorar ni a dormiry que contigo estoy sin vertedesde hace tiempo y hasta el fin. I can't just suddenly tell youwhat I should be telling you, friend, forgive me; you knowthat although you don't hear my words, I wasn't asleep or in tears, that I am with you without seeing youfor a good long time and until the end. Pablo Neruda
Las lágrimas que no se lloranesperan en pequeños lagos? O...
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Las lágrimas que no se lloranesperan en pequeños lagos? O serán ríos invisiblesque corren hacia la tristeza? Pablo Neruda
I shivered in thosesolitudeswhen I heardthe voiceofthe saltin the desert.
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I shivered in thosesolitudeswhen I heardthe voiceofthe saltin the desert. Pablo Neruda
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Te amo sin saber cómo, ni cuándo, ni de dónde, te amo directamente sin problemas ni orgullo: así te amo porque no sé amar de otra manera, sino así de este modo en que no soy ni eres, tan cerca que tu mano sobre mi pecho es mía, tan cerca que se cierran tus ojos con mi sueño. Pablo Neruda
Where were you then? Who else was there? Saying what?...
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Where were you then? Who else was there? Saying what? Why will the whole of love come on me suddenly when I am sad and feel you are far away? Pablo Neruda
Yo te amo para comenzar a amarte, para recomenzar el...
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Yo te amo para comenzar a amarte, para recomenzar el infinitoy para no dejar de amarte nunca:por eso no te amo todavía. Pablo Neruda
I like for you to be still: it is as...
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I like for you to be still: it is as though you are absentdistant and full of sorrow as though you had died One word then, one smile is enough And I'm happy; happy that it's not true Pablo Neruda
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And tell me everything, tell chain by chain, and link by link, and step by step; sharpen the knives you kept hidden away, thrust them into my breast, into my hands, like a torrent of sunbursts, an Amazon of buried jaguars, and leave me cry: hours, days and years, blind ages, stellar centuries. Pablo Neruda
By night, beloved, tie your heart to mineand let them...
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By night, beloved, tie your heart to mineand let them both in dreams defeat the darkness Pablo Neruda
You are the trembling of time, that passesbetween vertical light...
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You are the trembling of time, that passesbetween vertical light and darkened sky, Pablo Neruda
You, in bloom, heart, beloved, you are like the foliage...
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You, in bloom, heart, beloved, you are like the foliage of the sky over my eyesand I look at you lying on the earth Pablo Neruda
My beauty, flower by flower, star by star, wave by...
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My beauty, flower by flower, star by star, wave by wave, love, I have counted your body. Pablo Neruda
My ugly one, I love you for your waist of...
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My ugly one, I love you for your waist of gold, my beauty, I love you because of a wrinkle on your forehead, love, I love you because you are clear and dark. Pablo Neruda
71
I move in the university of the waves. Pablo Neruda
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With which stars do they go on speaking, the rivers that never reach the sea? Pablo Neruda
73
Come see the cherry trees of a water constellationand the round key of the rapid universe, come touch the fire of instantaneous blue, come before its petals are consumed. Pablo Neruda
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Naked you are blue like the night in Cuba, you have vines and stars in your hair, Pablo Neruda
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From that terrible love the soft pure handsgave peace to my eyes and sun to my senses. Pablo Neruda
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Love brought its tail of pains, its long static beam of thorns, and we close our eyes so that nothing, so that no wound will separate us. Pablo Neruda
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No one will retrieve my lost heartamidst so many roots, in the bitter freshnessof the sun multiplied by the fury of the water, there the shadow lives that does not travel with me. Pablo Neruda
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And the heart sounds like a sour conch, calls, oh sea, oh lament, oh molten panic, scattered in the unlucky and disheveled waves:the sea reports sonorouslyon its languid shadows, its green poppies. Pablo Neruda
79
With kisses your mouth taught memy lips came to know fire. Pablo Neruda
80
Settle your perfect hips here and the bow of wet arrowsloosens into the night the petals that form your formlet your clay limbs climb the silence and its pale ladderrung by rung taking off with me in my dream. I can sense you scaling the shade tree that sings to the shadows. Dark is the world’s night without you my love, Pablo Neruda
81
You, my friend, could be the smoke’s daughter, you who may not have known you were born of fire and rage, lightning over flaming lava etched your violet mouth, your sex in the scorched oak’s moss like a ring in a nest, your fingers there in the flames, your compact bodyrose from leaves of fire that make me recallthere were bakers in your family tree, you’re still the rainforest’s bread, ash from violent wheat, . Pablo Neruda
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Dark is the world’s night without you my love, Pablo Neruda
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I cannot quit your love without dying. Pablo Neruda
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I love you in order to begin loving you, to start infinity againand never to stop loving you:that is why I do not love you yet. Pablo Neruda
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I love you without knowing how, nor when, nor from where, I love you directly without problems or pride: I love you this way because I know no other way to love, Pablo Neruda
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I have hunger for your mouth, for your voice, for your hair Pablo Neruda
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I touched you and my life stopped Pablo Neruda
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Oh invade me with your scalding mouth, search me if you like, with your nocturnal eyes, but allow me to sail and sleep upon your name. Pablo Neruda
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Love, my territory of kisses and volcanoes. Pablo Neruda
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I love the piece of earth you are, because in all the planetary prairies I do not have another star. You repeatthe multiplication of the universe. Pablo Neruda
91
Beyond the earth and the shadowthe brightness of our love will stay alive Pablo Neruda
92
I repeated: come with me, as if I were dying, and no one saw in my mouth the moon that was bleeding, no one saw the blood that was rising into the silence. Oh love, now let us forget the star with thorns! Pablo Neruda
93
Of so much moon were your hips to me, of all the sun your deep mouth and its delight, of so much burning light like honey in the shade Pablo Neruda
94
Body of a woman, white hills, white thighs, you look like a world, lying in surrender. My rough peasant's body digs in youand makes the son leap from the depth of the earth. I was lone like a tunnel. The birds fled from me, and nigh 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 you. 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 sad! Body of my woman, I will persist in your grace. My thirst, my boundless desire, my shifting road! Dark river-beds where the eternal thirst flowsand weariness follows, and the infinite ache. Pablo Neruda
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Como se reparten el sol en el naranjo las naranjas? How do the oranges divide up sunlight in the orange tree? Pablo Neruda
96
The word was born in the blood, grew in the dark body, beating, and took flight through the lips and the mouth. Farther away and nearer still, still it came from dead fathers and from wondering races, from lands which had turned to stone, lands weary of their poor tribes, for when grief took to the roads the people set out and arrived and married new land and water to grow their words again. And so this is the inheritance; this is the wavelength which connects us with dead men and the dawning of new beings not yet come to light. Pablo Neruda
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I want to see the thirstinside the syllables I want to touch the firein the sound: I want to feel the darknessof the cry. I wantwords as roughas virgin rocks.” - Verb. Pablo Neruda
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Do you not hear the constant victory, in the human footraceof time, slow as fire, sure, and thick and Herculeanaccumulating its volume and adding its sad fiber? Pablo Neruda
99
If you think it long and mad the wind of banners that passes through my life And you decide to leave me at the shore of the heart where I have roots Remember That on that day, at that hour, I shall lift my arms And my roots will set off to seek another land Pablo Neruda
100
Carnal apple, Woman filled, burning moon, dark smell of seaweed, crush of mud and light, what secret knowledge is clasped between your pillars? What primal night does Man touch with his senses? Ay, Love is a journey through waters and stars, through suffocating air, sharp tempests of grain: Love is a war of lightning, and two bodies ruined by a single sweetness. Kiss by kiss I cover your tiny infinity, your margins, your rivers, your diminutive villages, and a genital fire, transformed by delight, slips through the narrow channels of bloodto precipitate a nocturnal carnation, to be, and be nothing but light in the dark. Pablo Neruda