Sonnet 17

Pablo Neruda is a master of love poetry. If you want to find the way to this girl's heart it is not through Shakespeare, but Neruda. There is such a passionate and yet a dark quality to his poetry. I don't often post poetry in other languages because I have to post the original and the translation. But there are so many beautiful poems that are not in English.  It seems a shame not to include them. Most of you might know this, but it's the last 2 lines that really get me.

Soneto XVII

No te amo como si fueras rosa de sal, topacio

o flecha de claveles que propagan el fuego:

te amo como se aman ciertas cosas oscuras,

secretamente, entre la sombra y el alma.

Te amo como la planta que no florece y lleva

dentro de sí, escondida, la luz de aquellas flores,

y gracias a tu amor vive oscuro en mi cuerpo

el apretado aroma que ascendió de la tierra.

Te amo sin saber cómo, ni cuándo, ni de dónde,

te amo directamente sin problemas ni orgullo:

así te amo porque no sé amar de otra manera,

sino así de este modo en que no soy ni eres,

tan cerca que tu mano sobre mi pecho es mía,

tan cerca que se cierran tus ojos con mi sueño.

Sonnet XVII

I do not love you as if you were a rose made of salt or topaz

or an arrow of carnations spreading fire:

I love you the way certain dark things are loved,

secretly, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you like the plant that never blooms,

but conceals within itself the light of those flowers;

and, thanks to your love, the darkness of my body

houses the suffocating aroma that arose from the earth.

I love you without knowing how, when, or where from;

I love you straightforwardly, with neither problems nor pride:

I love you thus, not knowing how to love you otherwise

than this way whereby neither ‘you’ nor ‘I’ exist…

so close that your hand on my chest is mine,

so close that your eyes grow heavy when I tire.