Pablo Neruda Sonnet Poems

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.
...

And now you're mine. Rest with your dream in my dream.
Love and pain and work should all sleep, now.
The night turns on its invisible wheels,
and you are pure beside me as a sleeping amber.
...

Before I loved you, love, nothing was my own:
I wavered through the streets, among
Objects:
Nothing mattered or had a name:
...

You are the daughter of the sea, oregano's first cousin.
Swimmer, your body is pure as the water;
cook, your blood is quick as the soil.
Everything you do is full of flowers, rich with the earth.
...

I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair.
Silent and starving, I prowl through the streets.
Bread does not nourish me, dawn disrupts me, all day
I hunt for the liquid measure of your steps.
...

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be l
...

If your eyes were not the color of the moon,
of a day full [here, interrupted by the baby waking -- continued about 26
hours later ]
of a day full of clay, and work, and fire,
...

Naked, you are simple as one of your hands,
Smooth, earthy, small, transparent, round:
You have moonlines, applepathways:
Naked, you are slender as a naked grain of wheat.
...

Who ever desired each other as we do? Let us look
for the ancient ashes of hearts that burned,
and let our kisses touch there, one by one,
till the flower, disembodied, rises again.
...

I hunt for a sign of you in all the others,
In the rapid undulant river of women,
Braids, shyly sinking eyes,
Light step that slices, sailing through the foam.
...

Already, you are mine. Rest with your dream inside my dream.
Love, grief, labour, must sleep now.
...

Maybe you'll remember that razor-faced man
who slipped out from the dark like a blade
and - before we realized - knew what was there:
he saw the smoke and concluded fire.
...

If your eyes were not the color of the moon,
of a day full [here, interrupted by the baby waking - continued
...

There where the waves shatter on the restless rocks
the clear light bursts and enacts its rose,
and the sea-circle shrinks to a cluster of buds,
to one drop of blue salt, falling.
...

The light that rises from your feet to your hair,
the strength enfolding your delicate form,
are not mother of pearl, not chilly silver:
you are made of bread, a bread the fire adores.
...