sin ninguna tristeza:
están firmes mis pies sobre la tierra,
mi mano escribe esta carta en el camino,
y en medio de la vida estaré
siempre
junto al amigo, frente al enemigo,
con tu nombre en la boca
y un beso que jamás
se apartó de la tuya.
LETTER ON THE ROAD
Farewell, but you will be
with me, you will go within
a drop of blood circulating in my veins
or outside, a kiss that burns my face
or a belt of fire at my waist.
My sweet, accept
the great love that came out of my life
and that in you found no territory
like the explorer lost
in the isles of bread and honey.
I found you after
the storm,
the rain washed the air
and in the water
your sweet feet gleamed like fishes.
Adored one, I am off to my fighting.
I shall scratch the earth to make you a cave
and there your Captain
will wait for you with flowers in the bed.
Think no more, my sweet,
about the anguish
that went on between us
like a bolt of phosphorous
leaving us perhaps its burning.
Peace arrived too because I return
to my land to fight,
and as I have a whole heart
with the share of blood that you gave me
forever,
and as
I have
my hands filled with your naked being,
look at me,
look at me,
look at me across the sea, for I go radiant,
look at me across the night through which I sail,
and sea and night are those eyes of yours.
I have not left you when I go away.
Now I am going to tell you:
my land will be yours,
not just to give it to you,
but for everyone,
for all my people.
The thief will come out of his tower some day.
And the invader will be expelled.
All the fruits of life
will grow in my hands
accustomed once to powder.
And I shall know how to touch the new flowers gently
because you taught me tenderness.
My sweet, adored one,
you will come with me to fight face to face
because your kisses live in my heart
like red banners,
and if I fall, not only
will earth cover me
but also this great love that you brought me
and that lived circulating in my blood.
You will come with me,
at that hour I wait for you,
at that hour and at every hour,
at every hour I wait for you.
And when the sadness that I hate comes
to knock at your door,
tell her that I am waiting for you
and when loneliness wants you to change
the ring in which my name is written,
tell loneliness to talk with me,
that I had to go away
because I am a soldier,
and that there where I am,
under rain or under
fire,
my love, I wait for you.
I wait for you in the harshest desert
and next to the flowering lemon tree,
in every place where there is life,
where spring is being born,
my love, I wait for you.
When they tell you: “That man
does not love you,” remember
that my feet are alone in that night, and they seek
the sweet and tiny feet that I adore.
Love, when they tell you
that I have forgotten you, and even when
it is I who say it,
when I say it to you,
do not believe me,
who could and how could anyone
cut you from my heart
and who would receive
my blood
when I went bleeding toward you?
But still I can not
forget my people.
I am going to fight in each street,
behind each stone.
Your love also helps me:
it is a closed flower
that constantly fills me with its aroma
and that opens suddenly
within me like a great star.
My love, it is night.
The black water, the sleeping
world surround me.
Soon dawn will come,
and meanwhile I write you
to tell you: “I love you.”
To tell you “I love you,” care for,
clean, lift up,
defend
our love, my darling.
I leave it with you as if I left
a handful of earth with seeds.
From our love lives will be born.
In our love they will drink water.
Perhaps a day will come
when a man
and a woman, like
us,
will touch this love and it will still have the strength
to burn the hands that touch it.
Who were we? What does it matter?
They will touch this fire
and the fire, my sweet, will say your simple name
and mine, the name
that only you knew, because you alone
upon earth know
who I am, and because nobody knew me like one,
like just one hand of yours,
because nobody
knew how or when
my heart was burning:
only
your great dark eyes knew,
your wide mouth,
your skin, your breasts,
your belly, your insides,
so that it would go on
singing until the end of life.
Love, I am waiting for you.
Farewell, love, I am waiting for you.
Love, love, I am waiting for you.
And so this letter ends
with no sadness:
my feet are firm upon the earth,
my hand writes this letter on the road,
and in the midst of life I shall be
always
beside the friend, facing the enemy,
with your name on my mouth
and a kiss that never
broke away from yours.
PABLO NERUDA (1904-1973), known as the Homer of our times, was born Neftalí Ricardo Reyes Basoalto in Parral, Chile. “Perhaps the most read poet in history” (Alastair Reid), Neruda received many prestigious awards including the Order of the Aztec Eagle from the Mexican government in 1946, the International Peace Prize in 1950 (with Paul Robeson, Pablo Picasso, Nazim Hikmet, and Wanda Jakubowska), and the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1971. Prolific poet, world traveler, leftist activist, editor, essayist, memoirist, lecturer, consul, communist, populist, fugitive, senator, ambassador, “armchair sailor,” collector of sextants and clocks, member of the World Peace Council—Neruda died of cancer in Santiago, Chile, twelve days after the murder of President Salvador Allende. Matilde Urrutia, his third and last wife, died in 1985.
by Pablo Neruda
Available from New Directions
THE CAPTAIN’S VERSES (BILINGUALM)
LOVE POEM (BILINGUAL)
RESIDENCE ON EARTH (BILINGUAL)
SPAIN IN OUR HEARTS (BILINGUAL)
Copyright © 1952 Pablo Neruda and Fundcíon Pablo Neruda
Copyright © 1972 by Pablo Neruda and Donald D. Wals
h
Copyright © 1972, 2004 by New Directions Publishing Corporation
All rights reserved. Except for brief passages quoted in a newspaper, magazine, radio, television, or website review; no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the Publisher.
Some of these poems first appeared in The Atlantic Monthly and The Nation.
First published clothbound and as New Directions Paperbook 345 in 1972. Reissued as NDP991 in 2004.
Published simultaneously in Canada by Penguin Books Canada Limited
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Neruda, Pablo, 1904-1973.
[Los versos del Capitán. English & Spanish]
The Captain’s Vases - Los versos del Capitán / by Pablo Neruda; translated by Donald D. Walsh.
p. cm.-(New Directions Paperbook 991)
eISBN:ISBN 978-0-8112-2147-4
I. Title: Los versos del Capitán. II. Walsh, Donald Devenish, 1903-1980 III. Title.
PQ8097.N4V4313 2004
861’.62—dc22
2003028145
New Directions Books are published for James Laughlin
by New Directions Publishing Corporation
80 Eighth Avenue, New York, NY 10011
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