Pablo Neruda love poetry is melancholic and passionate

Pablo Neruda Love Poetry's first work of repute and also probably his best known, is the set of love poetry he published in 1924, Veinte poemas de amor y una cancion desesperada (Twenty love poems and a song of despair)

This work, his most widely read, has sold over a million copies all over the world, and has been translated into many languages.

Afficionados of Pablo Neruda love poetry in its original language Spanish, are often critical of the accuracy of translations of his poetry, a wholly understandable and justifiable carp when you bear in mind that all translations, no matter how good, are at best only approximations of the original. Even so the value of the many good english translations available are indisputable, and do impart clearly the technique and talents of this master poet.

My first example of Pablo Neruda love poetry is TONIGHT I CAN WRITE taken from Twenty Poems of Love. One of my favorite lines in love poetry is from this amazing poem:

"Love is brief: forgetting lasts so long"

TONIGHT I CAN WRITE

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

Write for example: ‘The night is fractured

and they shiver, blue, those stars, in the distance’

The night wind turns in the sky and sings.

I can write the saddest lines tonight.

I loved her, sometimes she loved me too.

On nights like these I held her in my arms.

I kissed her greatly under the infinite sky.

She loved me, sometimes I loved her too.

How could I not have loved her huge, still eyes.

I can write the saddest lines tonight.

To think I don’t have her, to feel I have lost her.

Hear the vast night, vaster without her.

Lines fall on the soul like dew on the grass.

What does it matter that I couldn’t keep her.

The night is fractured and she is not with me.

That is all. Someone sings far off. Far off,

my soul is not content to have lost her.

As though to reach her, my sight looks for her.

My heart looks for her: she is not with me

The same night whitens, in the same branches.

We, from that time, we are not the same.

I don’t love her, that’s certain, but how I loved her.

My voice tried to find the breeze to reach her.

Another’s kisses on her, like my kisses.

Her voice, her bright body, infinite eyes.

I don’t love her, that’s certain, but perhaps I love her.

Love is brief: forgetting lasts so long.

Since, on these nights, I held her in my arms,

my soul is not content to have lost her.

Though this is the last pain she will make me suffer,

and these are the last lines I will write for her.

Click here for more Pablo Neruda Twenty Love Poems

Click here for yet more Pablo Neruda Twenty Love Poems

Click here for even more Pablo Neruda Twenty Love Poems

Click here for Pablo Neruda Love Sonnets

Click here for Pablo Neruda Passionate Love Poetry

Click here for Pablo Neruda Melancholic Love Poetry

Click here for Pablo Neruda Joyous Love Poetry

If you like Pablo Neruda Love poetry and would like to receive more information directly in your inbox, subscribe to my Love Poetry of The World newsletter

Return from Pablo Neruda Love Poetry to Love Poetry of The World