Neruda Poems — Celtic to Classical

Songs of Love and Despair

poems by Pablo Neruda

musical settings by Ya-Jhu Yang

I. Here I Love You (English translation by W. S. Merwin)

Here I love you.

In the dark pines the wind disentangles itself.

The moon glows like phosphorous on the vagrant waters.

Days, all one kind, go chasing each other.

The snow unfurls in dancing figures.

A silver gull slips down from the west.

Sometimes a sail. High, high stars.

Oh the black cross of a ship.

Alone.

Sometimes I get up early and even my soul is wet.

Far away the sea sounds and resounds.

This is a port.

Here I love you.

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 no arrival.

I see myself forgotten like those old anchors.

The piers sadden when the afternoon moors there.

My life 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.

II. The Queen (English translation by Donald D. Walsh)

I have named you queen.

There are taller ones than you, taller.

There are purer ones than you, purer.

There are lovelier ones 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.

III. Your Feet (English translation by Donald D. Walsh)

When I cannot look at your face

I look at your feet.

Your feet of arched bone,

your hard little feet.

I know that they support you,

and that your gentle weight

rises upon them.

Your waist and your breasts,

the doubled purple

of your nipples,

the sockets of your eyes

that have just flown away,

your wide fruit mouth,

your red tresses,

my little tower.

But I love your feet

only because they walked

upon the earth and upon

the wind and upon the waters,

until they found me.

English language translations: