Pablo Neruda love poetry is tender and melancholic.

Pablo Neruda love poetry is equally legendary for its melancholia. Let us look at three poems that illustrates this aspect of his work.

The Dead Woman

If suddenly you do not exist,

if suddenly you are not living,

I shall go on living.

I do not dare,

I do not dare to write it,

if you die.

I shall go on living.

Because where a man has no voice,

there, my voice

Where blacks are beaten,

I can not be dead.

When my brothers go to jail

I shall go with them.

When victory,

not my victory,

but the great victory

arrives,

even though I am mute I must speak:

I shall see it come even though I am blind.

No, forgive me,

if you are not living,

if you, beloved, my love,

if you

have died.

In the next example of melancholic Pablo Neruda love poetry, his bitter-sweet cadences mine a rich vein.

Surely, somewhere deep in our psyche, we are all familiar with pathos and sadness, especially in our relationships. Who among us all can say he or she has not been once touched by unhappiness or even sometimes despair? To quote a popular song once made famous by the singer Billie Holiday, "Good Morning Heartache, sit down!"

Pablo Neruda Love Poetry is quite adept and eloquent in expressing sadness.

No poem among the rich legacy of Pablo Neruda Love Poetry, shows this human emotion more clearly than "I Like For You to be Still"

I LIKE FOR YOU TO BE STILL

I like for you to be still

It is as though you are absent

And you hear me from far away

And my voice does not touch you

It seems as though your eyes had flown away

And it seems that a kiss had sealed your mouth

As all things are filled with my soul

You emerge from the things

Filled with my soul

You are like my soul

A butterfly of dream

And you are like the word: Melancholy

I like for you to be still

And you seem far away

It sounds as though you are lamenting

A butterfly cooing like a dove

And you hear me from far away

And my voice does not reach you

Let me come to be still in your silence

And let me talk to you with your silence

That is bright as a lamp

Simple, as a ring

You are like the night

With its stillness and constellations

Your silence is that of a star

As remote and candid

I like for you to be still

It is as though you are absent

Distant and full of sorrow

So you would've died

One word then, One smile is enough

And I'm happy;

Happy that it's not true

Come with me, I said, and no one knew

where, or how my pain throbbed,

no carnations or barcaroles for me,

only a wound that love had opened.

I said it again: Come with me, as if I were dying,

and no one saw the moon that bled in my mouth

or the blood that rose into the silence.

O Love, now we can forget the star that has such thorns!

That is why when I heard your voice repeat

Come with me, it was as if you had let loose

the grief, the love, the fury of a cork-trapped wine

the geysers flooding from deep in its vault:

in my mouth I felt the taste of fire again,

of blood and carnations, of rock and scald.

'I Like For You To Be Still' should not be appreciated only for its tender melancholy. Dear reader, do you not notice how redemption and catharsis come together at the end of the poet's quiet despair? The poetic beauty in Pablo Neruda Love Poetry reveals itself in its duality of existence...

"in my mouth I felt the taste of fire again,

of blood and carnations, of rock and scald".

Here is another good one from Pablo Neruda Love Poetry. Again as I am wont to do, I have saved the best till last...

It contains the immortal words "Why will the whole of love come on me suddenly/ when I am sad and feel you are far away?"

Clenched Soul

We have lost even this twilight.

No one saw us this evening hand in hand

while the blue night dropped on the world.

I have seen from my window

the fiesta of sunset in the distant mountain tops.

Sometimes a piece of sun

burned like a coin in my hand.

I remembered you with my soul clenched

in that sadness of mine that you know.

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?

The book fell that always closed at twilight

and my blue sweater rolled like a hurt dog at my feet.

Always, always you recede through the evenings

toward the twilight erasing statues.

Click here for Pablo Neruda Joyful Love Poetry

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