Share this page:
Despair Poems - Poems For Despair
Poems about despair. You can read the best despair poems. Browse through all despair poems.
A Song Of Despair - Poem by Pablo Neruda
The memory of you emerges from the night around me.
The river mingles its stubborn lament with the sea.
Deserted like the wharves at dawn.
It is the hour of departure, oh deserted one!
Cold flower heads are raining over my heart.
Oh pit of debris, fierce cave of the shipwrecked.
In you the wars and the flights accumulated.
From you the wings of the song birds rose.
You swallowed everything, like distance.
Like the sea, like time. In you everything sank!
It was the happy hour of assault and the kiss.
The hour of the spell that blazed like a lighthouse.
Pilot's dread, fury of blind driver,
turbulent drunkenness of love, in you everything sank!
In the childhood of mist my soul, winged and wounded.
Lost discoverer, in you everything sank!
You girdled sorrow, you clung to desire,
sadness stunned you, in you everything sank!
I made the wall of shadow draw back,
beyond desire and act, I walked on.
Oh flesh, my own flesh, woman whom I loved and lost,
I summon you in the moist hour, I raise my song to you.
Like a jar you housed infinite tenderness.
and the infinite oblivion shattered you like a jar.
There was the black solitude of the islands,
and there, woman of love, your arms took me in.
There was thirst and hunger, and you were the fruit.
There were grief and ruins, and you were the miracle.
Ah woman, I do not know how you could contain me
in the earth of your soul, in the cross of your arms!
How terrible and brief my desire was to you!
How difficult and drunken, how tensed and avid.
Cemetery of kisses, there is still fire in your tombs,
still the fruited boughs burn, pecked at by birds.
Oh the bitten mouth, oh the kissed limbs,
oh the hungering teeth, oh the entwined bodies.
Oh the mad coupling of hope and force
in which we merged and despaired.
And the tenderness, light as water and as flour.
And the word scarcely begun on the lips.
This was my destiny and in it was my voyage of my longing,
and in it my longing fell, in you everything sank!
Oh pit of debris, everything fell into you,
what sorrow did you not express, in what sorrow are you not drowned!
From billow to billow you still called and sang.
Standing like a sailor in the prow of a vessel.
You still flowered in songs, you still brike the currents.
Oh pit of debris, open and bitter well.
Pale blind diver, luckless slinger,
lost discoverer, in you everything sank!
It is the hour of departure, the hard cold hour
which the night fastens to all the timetables.
The rustling belt of the sea girdles the shore.
Cold stars heave up, black birds migrate.
Deserted like the wharves at dawn.
Only tremulous shadow twists in my hands.
Oh farther than everything. Oh farther than everything.
It is the hour of departure. Oh abandoned one!
Poems About Despair
- 1. A Song Of Despair , Pablo Neruda
- 2. The Song Of Despair , Pablo Neruda
- 3. A Meeting With Despair , Thomas Hardy
- 4. Sonnet 144: Two Loves I Have, Of Comfort.. , William Shakespeare
- 5. Song Of Despair , Pablo Neruda
- 6. Despair , Samuel Taylor Coleridge
- 7. Despair , Anne Sexton
- 8. Despair , Percy Bysshe Shelley
- 9. In Black Despair , Czeslaw Milosz
- 10. A Song Of Despair , VIPINS PUTHOORAN
- 11. In Despair , Constantine P. Cavafy
- 12. Despair , Ada Cambridge
- 13. Shall I Wasting In Despair , George Wither
- 14. Song. Despair , Percy Bysshe Shelley
- 15. Ode To Despair , Charlotte Smith
- 16. Ode To Despair , Mary Darby Robinson
- 17. Hope And Despair , Lascelles Abercrombie
- 18. Despair , Paul Laurence Dunbar
- 19. Fragment: Such Hope, As Is The Sick Desp.. , Percy Bysshe Shelley
- 20. Despair , Leo Yankevich
- 21. But Don'T Despair , Mark R Slaughter
- 22. To Reformers In Despair , Vachel Lindsay
- 23. Despair , Mary Nagy
- 24. Despair , Kelly Vinal
- 25. Limerick: There Was An Old Man Whose Des.. , Edward Lear
- 26. (981) Invitation To Despair , Melvina Germain
- 27. Edge Of Despair , Seema Chowdhury
- 28. Gust Of Despair , irum inayat
- 29. Despair , Edith Nesbit
- 30. Hour Of Despair , (brief renderings) Joe Fazio
- 31. The Despair , Abraham Cowley
- 32. Despair , Esther Leclerc
- 33. Beyond Despair , Sarah L. Johnsen
- 34. Desire And Despair , C.N.Premkumar (love poems, V ..
- 35. The Difference Between Despair , Emily Dickinson
- 36. Somewhere Around Despair , Sofiul Azam
- 37. The Valley Of Despair , Patricia Grantham
- 38. Happiness...Despair , (brief renderings) Joe Fazio
- 39. Despair , Howard Phillips Lovecraft
- 40. My Despair Comes And Goes , Shalom Freedman
- 41. No Man Can Compass A Despair , Emily Dickinson
- 42. The Irony Of Despair , Lauren Phillips
- 43. Despair , Jean Blewett
- 44. Hours Of Despair... , (brief renderings) Joe Fazio
- 45. Despair , Mathilde Blind
- 46. Cries Of Despair -Haiku , 2bpositive 2bpositive
- 47. Despair , Adeline Foster
- 48. Despair , Marian Osborne
- 49. Despair Is Darkness , Shalom Freedman
- 50. Despair Of The Early Morning , Shalom Freedman
New Despair Poems
- Despair And Despair And Despair, Shalom Freedman
- The Depths Of Despair, J. Fern Mossely
- Despair Not Truth, Morakinyo Temiloluwa Bolarinwa
- Faith Is Truth, C. P. Sharma
- The Fighting Twins, AKSHAYA KUMAR DAS
- Despair, RAJ VIKRAM
- Despair And More Despair, Shalom Freedman
- Her Despair Is My Despair, Shalom Freedman
- Last Hope?, Driss Ezzireg
- Don't Despair, Mark Nichols
All Poems
- alone
- america
- angel
- anger
- animal
- baby
- beach
- beautiful
- beauty
- believe
- birth
- brother
- butterfly
- car
- carpe diem
- change
- chicago
- childhood
- children
- christmas
- cinderella
- city
- courage
- crazy
- culture
- dance
- dark
- daughter
- death
- depression
- despair
- destiny
- dream
- evil
- faith
- family
- father
- fear
- fire
- food
- football
- freedom
- friend
- frog
- funeral
- funny
- future
- girl
- god
- graduation
- greed
- green
- hair
- happiness
- happy
- hate
- heaven
- hero
- home
- hope
- house
- hunting
- husband
- identity
- innocence
- january
- joy
- june
- justice
- kiss
- laughter
- life
- lonely
- loss
- lost
- love
- lust
- marriage
- memory
- mirror
- money
- moon
- mother
- murder
- music
- nature
- night
- ocean
- paris
- passion
- peace
- pink
- poem
- poetry
- poverty
- power
- racism
- rain
- rainbow
- red
- remember
- respect
- river
- romance
- romantic
- rose
- running
- school
- sea
- sick
- silver
- sister
- sky
- sleep
- snake
- soldier
- sometimes
- son
- song
- sorrow
- spring
- star
- success
- suicide
- summer
- sun
- swimming
- sympathy
- teacher
- thanks
- time
- today
- together
- travel
- trust
- truth
- war
- warning
- water
- weather
- wedding
- winter
- work
- world
I fell in love with this poem the very first time I read it, in my teens.. It was an Italian translation (a very good one, indeed) , but I was curious to 'feel' the musicality of the original text.. I was lucky and found the book '' Veinte poemas de amor y una canción desesperada''.. wow.. in Spanish it is simply wonderful! And Neruda was barely 19 (or younger) when he wrote it! (Report) Reply
LA CANCIÓN DESESPERADA
EMERGE tu recuerdo de la noche en que estoy.
El río anuda al mar su lamento obstinado.
Abandonado como los muelles en el alba.
Es la hora de partir, oh abandonado!
Sobre mi corazón llueven frías corolas.
Oh sentina de escombros, feroz cueva de náufragos!
En ti se acumularon las guerras y los vuelos.
De ti alzaron las alas los pájaros del canto.
Todo te lo tragaste, como la lejanía.
Como el mar, como el tiempo. Todo en ti fue
naufragio!
Era la alegre hora del asalto y el beso.
La hora del estupor que ardía como un faro.
Ansiedad de piloto, furia de buzo ciego,
turbia embriaguez de amor, todo en ti fue naufragio!
En la infancia de niebla mi alma alada y herida.
Descubridor perdido, todo en ti fue naufragio!
Te ceñiste al dolor, te agarraste al deseo.
Te tumbó la tristeza, todo en ti fue naufragio!
Hice retroceder la muralla de sombra,
anduve más allá del deseo y del acto.
Oh carne, carne mía, mujer que amé y perdí,
a ti en esta hora húmeda, evoco y hago canto.
Como un vaso albergaste la infinita ternura,
y el infinito olvido te trizó como a un vaso.
Era la negra, negra soledad de las islas,
y allí, mujer de amor, me acogieron tus brazos.
Era la sed y el hambre, y tú fuiste la fruta.
Era el duelo y las ruinas, y tú fuiste el milagro.
Ah mujer, no sé cómo pudiste contenerme
en la tierra de tu alma, y en la cruz de tus brazos!
Mi deseo de ti fue el más terrible y corto,
el más revuelto y ebrio, el más tirante y ávido.
Cementerio de besos, aún hay fuego en tus tumbas,
aún los racimos arden picoteados de pájaros.
Oh la boca mordida, oh los besados miembros,
oh los hambrientos dientes, oh los cuerpos trenzados.
Oh la cópula loca de esperanza y esfuerzo
en que nos anudamos y nos desesperamos.
Y la ternura, leve como el agua y la harina.
Y la palabra apenas comenzada en los labios.
Ése fue mi destino y en él viajó mi anhelo,
y en él cayó mi anhelo, todo en ti fue naufragio!
Oh sentina de escombros, en ti todo caía,
qué dolor no exprimiste, qué olas no te ahogaron.
De tumbo en tumbo aún llameaste y cantaste
de pie como un marino en la proa de un barco.
Aún floreciste en cantos, aún rompiste en corrientes.
Oh sentina de escombros, pozo abierto y amargo.
Pálido buzo ciego, desventurado hondero,
descubridor perdido, todo en ti fue naufragio!
Es la hora de partir, la dura y fría hora
que la noche sujeta a todo horario.
El cinturón ruidoso del mar ciñe la costa.
Surgen frías estrellas, emigran negros pájaros.
Abandonado como los muelles en el alba.
Sólo la sombra trémula se retuerce en mis manos.
Ah más allá de todo. Ah más allá de todo.
Es la hora de partir. Oh abandonado! (Report) Reply
''Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair'' ('' Veinte poemas de amor y una canción desesperada'') : Neruda was 19 when first published the book in 1924. (Report) Reply