Here I love you
By: Pablo Neruda
Here I love you.
In the dark pines the wind disentangles itself.
The moon glows like phosphorous on the vagrant waters.
Days, all one kind, go chasing each other.
The snow unfurls in dancing figures.
A silver gull slips down from the west.
Sometimes a sail. High, high stars.
Oh the black cross of a ship.
Alone.
Sometimes I get up early and even my soul is wet.
Far away the sea sounds and resounds.
This is a port.
Here I love you.
Here I love you and the horizon hides you in vain.
I love you still among these cold things.
Sometimes my kisses go on those heavy vessels
that cross the sea towards no arrival.
I see myself forgotten like those old anchors.
The piers sadden when the afternoon moors there.
My life grows tired, hungry to no purpose.
I love what I do not have. You are so far.
My loathing wrestles with the slow twilights.
But night comes and starts to sing to me.
The moon turns its clockwork dream.
The biggest stars look at me with your eyes.
And as I love you, the pines in the wind
want to sing your name with their leaves of wire.
The poem Here I Love You is written by the Nobel Prize
winner Chilean poet Pablo Neruda. The poem presents
the theme of melancholy of separation with his beloved.
He is trying to come out of the grief of separation. This
love poem highlights the sadness occurred due to
separation. The poet has used different symbols in the
poem. ‘The dark pines’ symbolizes mysterious life of his
beloved. The word ‘dark’ suggests unseen.
Summary
The speaker is sad because of his separation from his
girlfriend. His girlfriend (beloved) is not with him. She is far
away in heaven. The speaker uses ' here ' to suggest this
mortal world and ' there ' to suggest beyond this world. He
feels alone in this mortal (physical) world.
His love for her is still the same as it was in the past. He
remembers his past memories with her. He loves too
much his separated beloved though she is in another
world, i.e. in heaven. He still remembers his joyful time
with his beloved. They would enjoy the beauty of dark pine
wood as well as moonlit waters. They would visit different
places in the snowy evenings.
Now, he sends kisses to his girlfriend through the sailing
ships that move toward darkness but never gets any reply
from her. All his efforts are vain because the horizon has
hidden her. When he sees the black cross of the ship, it
reminds him of his beloved's funeral. His days are passing
slowly due to his monotonous life without his beloved. He
is suffering from a bad dream that is haunting him after his
separation from her.
He compares himself with the old anchors because he is
also forgotten. His days and nights are filled with sadness.
It is very difficult for him to spend his evenings without her.
He is living without any love, hope, or purpose. He feels a
little bit comfortable talking with her at night in his dream.
He finds his beloved in the big stars as well as in the pine
trees. He thinks that the pine trees are celebrating his
beloved's death by singing her name. He also gets
consolation himself by looking at the big stars because he
finds her image in them.
Techniques
A technique that Neruda uses frequently within Here I Love You is
the employment of natural imagery. These images span from ‘sea’
to ‘dark pines’, ‘moon glows’, encompassing a wide range of
natural images and different ideas. By employing semantics which
fall into the natural category, Neruda is linking his love poem to
something natural and beautiful, therefore suggesting that the
love he has for this woman is similar. Although they cannot be
together, in sharing the beauty of natural images, Neruda feels
that he can link the two lovers, both experiencing nature,
although in different places.
What does the "black cross" symbolize?
The black cross is the symbol of death.
What's the meaning of "even my soul is wet"?
"Even my soul is wet" may mean that his soul is also weeping in
his separation from his beloved. The poet may think that human
beings' soul also bursts it tears in the time of melancholic and
painful situations. In the poem, seeing the speaker's condition in
his present, we also cannot control weeping.
Discuss "Here I Love You" as a love poem.
It is a pure love poem in which the speaker has become a
preacher of a true lover. Even in separation, his love, feeling, and
emotion towards her is same. Though she is no more in the
mortal world, she remains forever in his heart. He showing her
purity and softness goes to compare with natural imagery. Nature
is the same and spring ever comes but only human being goes
but never returns. However, his beloved never fades away but
remains blooms in his heart The poem is purely love because, in
most of love poems, poets talk about pine trees and stars. They
compare their beloved voice with pine song and eyes with star
and facial complexion with snow.
