Read The Captain's Verses Page 9

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,

  I am going to conquer it,

  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,

  and your soul that I awoke

  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

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3

 


 

  Pablo Neruda, The Captain's Verses

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