A Song of
DespaiR by Pablo Neruda
The mem from the ory of you em night aro e und mreg.es Deser
ted li
It is th dwarves at dawn. depart e hour of desert ure, oh ed one ! ke the
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 like distance. swallowed everything,
Like the sea, like time. In you everything sank!
It was the hour of assault and the kiss.
happy the spell
that blazed like a lighthouse.
f
dre
, r e v i r dd
t n e , l e v u o l b f o r s s e tdru n g n e n k i h un yt n i l b f yo
fur
you
in
! k n a
r e ev
s
a s g n i h t y r e ev
g n i w , l u t my so
s i m f o d hildhoo
ec
ed d n u o w ed and
u o y n ,i
You
girdled
sorrow, you clung to desire, sadness stunned you, in you everything sank!
beyond
I made the wall of shadow draw back, and act, I walked on.
Oh flesh,
I summ
my own fl whom I l esh, woman you in oved and lost,
hour, I on raise
the mo my to y ist ou.
oblivio
n shat
tered
song
you lik
e a jar
.
infin i t e t e n d erness.
Like a ja
r you
h o u and th sed e infin ite
k c a l b e h
e d u t , i s l d n o sof the isla
T
t s a w e r he
e v of lo , e r e h t and
n a m o w
m r a r you
n i e m k o o st
e the r e w u o nd y a , r em e h g t n e u r h e d w you st an r d i n h t a , s s a ruin d n There w a f e i re gr e w e r e Th
, e
n.
e fruit. . miracle
Ah woman,
the earth of your soul, I do not know how you could contain me
in
e,
in the cross of your arms!
How terrible and brief my desire was to you! How difficult and drunken, how tensed and
avid.
er
o f k there iss
Cemet
es,
is stil l fi still th y r o e u e fruit i r n t ed bou o m ghs bu rn, pe bs, Oh th cked
e bitten
the kisse
oh
mouth, o h at by b
irds.
d limbs,
the hu n g teeth, ering o h the entwin e bodies d .
,
Oh the mad
force coupling of hope and
in which we merged and despaired.
And the tenderness,
light as water and as flour.
And the word scarcely
begun on the lips.
wa
Thiss
my
y n i t s e d
e g a y o v y , in m l l s e a f w g it gin n n i o ! l d k n y n a m a t i s and in erything to you, v in l e l e f u g o n y i everyth
! w o r r o s t a wh
Oh of debris, pit
,
g n i g n o l of my
u not did yo
s expres
,i
ned t drow o n u o y ow are t sorr a h w n
Pablo
Neruda July 12, 1904 — September 23, 1973
Pablo was the pen name and, later, legal name of the Chilean writer and politician Neftalí Ricardo Reyes Basoalto. Neruda’s pen name was derived from Czech writer and poet Jan Neruda; Pablo is thought to be from Paul Verlaine. With his works translated into many languages, Pablo Neruda is considered one of the greatest and most influential poets of the 20th century. Neruda was accomplished in a variety of styles ranging from erotically charged love poems like his collection Twenty Poems of Love and a Song of Despair, surrealist poems, historical epics, and overtly political manifestos. In 1971 Neruda won the Nobel Prize for Literature, a controversial award because of his political activism. Colombian novelist Gabriel García Márquez once called him “the greatest poet of the 20th century in any language.” On July 15, 1945, at Pacaembu Stadium in São Paulo, Brazil, he read to 100,000 people in honor of Communist revolutionary leader Luís Carlos Prestes. When Neruda returned to Chile after his Nobel Prize acceptance speech, Salvador Allende invited him to read at the Estadio Nacional before 70,000 people. During his lifetime, Neruda occupied many diplomatic posts and served a stint as a senator for the Chilean Communist Party. When Conservative Chilean President González Videla outlawed communism in Chile, a warrant was issued for Neruda’s arrest. Friends hid him for months in a house basement in the Chilean port of Valparaíso. Later, Neruda escaped into exile through a mountain pass near Maihue Lake into Argentina. Years later, Neruda was a close collaborator to socialist President Salvador Allende.
Pablo Neruda