is a collection of sonnet

Sonnet

A sonnet is one of several forms of poetry that originate in Europe, mainly Provence and Italy. A sonnet commonly has 14 lines. The term "sonnet" derives from the Occitan word sonet and the Italian word sonetto, both meaning "little song" or "little sound"...

s written by the Chile

Chile

Chile ,officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...

an poet

Poet

A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...

 and Nobel Laureate Pablo Neruda

Pablo Neruda

Pablo Neruda was the pen name and, later, legal name of the Chilean poet, diplomat and politician Neftalí Ricardo Reyes Basoalto. He chose his pen name after Czech poet Jan Neruda....

 originally published in Argentina

Argentina

Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...

 in 1959

1959 in literature

The year 1959 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*April 30 - Theatrical première of Bertolt Brecht's Saint Joan of the Stockyards, originally performed on radio in 1932....

. Dedicated to his beloved wife (at the time), Matilde Urrutia, it is divided into the four stages of the day: morning, afternoon, evening, and night.

The sonnets have been translated into English numerous times by various scholars. The most widely acclaimed English translation was made by Stephen Tapscott and published in 1986. In 2004, Gustavo Escobedo translated the 100 sonnets for the 100th anniversary of Neruda’s birth.

Sonnet VI

Lost in the forest, I broke off a dark twig
and lifted its whisper to my thirsty lips:
maybe it was the voice of the rain crying,
a cracked bell, or a torn heart.

Something from far off: it seemed
deep and secret to me, hidden by the earth,
a shout muffled by huge autumns,
by the moist half-open darkness of the leaves.

Wakening from the dreaming forest there, the hazel-sprig
sang under my tongue, its drifting fragrance
climbed up through my conscious mind

as if suddenly the roots I had left behind
cried out to me, the land I had lost with my childhood—
and I stopped, wounded by the wandering scent.

– Translated by Stephen Tapscott

Morning / Mañana (Sonnets 1-32)

1. Matilde: the name of a plant, or a rock, or a wine
2. Love, what a long way, to arrive at a kiss
3. Bitter love, a violet with its crown
4. You will remember that leaping stream
5. I did not hold your night, or your air, or the dawn
6. Lost in the forest, I broke off a dark twig
7. Come with me, I said, and no one knew
8. If your eyes were not the color of the moon
9. There where the waves shatter on the restless rocks
10. This beauty is soft – as if music and wood
11. I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair
12. Full woman, flesh-apple, hot moon
13. The light that rises from your feet to you hair,
14. I don’t have time enough to celebrate your hair.
15. The earth has known you for a long time now:
16. I love the handful of the earth you are.
17. I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz
    Topaz
    Topaz is a silicate mineral of aluminium and fluorine with the chemical formula Al2SiO42. Topaz crystallizes in the orthorhombic system and its crystals are mostly prismatic terminated by pyramidal and other faces.-Color and varieties:...
    
    ,
18. You move through the mountain like a breeze,
19. While the huge seafoam of Isla Negra
    Isla Negra
    Isla Negra is a coastal area in El Quisco commune in central Chile, some 45 km south of Valparaiso and 95 km west of Santiago.-Pablo Neruda:...
    
    ,
20. My ugly love, you’re a messy chestnut
    Chestnut
    Chestnut , some species called chinkapin or chinquapin, is a genus of eight or nine species of deciduous trees and shrubs in the beech family Fagaceae, native to temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere. The name also refers to the edible nuts they produce.-Species:The chestnut belongs to the...
    
    .
21. If only love would spread its savor through me!
22. Love, how often I loved you without seeing—
23. The fire for light, a rancorous moon for bread,
24. Love, love, the clouds went up the tower of the sky
25. Before I loved you, Love, nothing was my own:
26. Neither the color of Iquique
    Iquique
    Iquique is a port city and commune in northern Chile, capital of both the Iquique Province and Tarapacá Region. It lies on the Pacific coast, west of the Atacama Desert and the Pampa del Tamarugal. It had a population of 216,419 as of the 2002 census...
    
    ’s awesome dunes,
27. Naked, you are simple as one of your hands,
28. Love, from seed to seed, from planet to planet,
29. You came from poverty, from the houses of the South,
30. You have the thick hair of a larch from the archipelago
    Archipelago
    An archipelago , sometimes called an island group, is a chain or cluster of islands. The word archipelago is derived from the Greek ἄρχι- – arkhi- and πέλαγος – pélagos through the Italian arcipelago...
    
    ,
31. Little queen of my bones, I crown you
32. The house this morning—with its truths

Afternoon / Mediodía (Sonnets 33-53)

33. Love, we’re going home now,
34. You are the daughter of the sea, oregano’s first cousin,
35. Your hand flew from my eyes into the day.
36. My heart, queen of the beehive and the barnyard,
37. O love, O crazy sunbeam and purple premonition,
38. Your house sounds like a train at noon:
39. But I forgot that your hands fed the roots,
40. It was green, the silence; the light was moist;
41. January rough times, when the indifferent
42. Radiant days rolling on the water, intense as the inside
43. I hunt for a sign of you in all the others,
44. You must know that I do not love and that I love you,
45. Don’t go far off, not even for a day, because—
46. Of all the stars I admired, drenched
47. I want to look back and see you in the branches.
48. Two happy lovers make one bread,
49. It’s today: all of yesterday dropped away
50. Cotapos says your laughter drops
51. Your laugh: it reminds me of a tree
52. You sing, and your voice peels the husk
53. Here are the bread—the wine—the table—the house:

Evening / Tarde (54-78)

54. Luminous mind, bright devil
55. Thorns, shattered glass, sickness, crying: all day
56. Get used to seeing the shadow behind me, accept
57. They’re liars, those who say I lost the moon,
58. Among the broadswords of literary iron
59. Poor unlucky poets: whom both life and death
60. Those who wanted to wound me wounded you,
61. Love dragged its tail of pain,
62. Woe is me, woe is us, my dearest:
63. I walked: not only through the wasteland where the
64. My life was tinted purple by so much love,
65. Matilde, where are you? Down there I noticed,
66. I do not love—except because I love you:
67. The great rain from the South falls on Isla Negra
68. The girl made of wood didn’t come here on foot;
69. Maybe nothingness is to be without your presence,
70. Maybe—through I do not bleed—I am wounded,
71. Love crosses its islands, from grief to grief,
72. My love, winter returns to its billet,
73. Maybe you’ll remember that razor-faced man
74. Wet with the waters of August, the road
75. Here are the houses, the sea, the flag.
76. With the patience of a bear, Diego Rivera
    Diego Rivera
    Diego María de la Concepción Juan Nepomuceno Estanislao de la Rivera y Barrientos Acosta y Rodríguez was a prominent Mexican painter born in Guanajuato, Guanajuato, an active communist, and husband of Frida Kahlo . His large wall works in fresco helped establish the Mexican Mural Movement in...
    
    
77. Today is today, with the weight of all past time,
78. I have no never-again, I have no always. In the sand

Night / Noche (Sonnets 79-100)

79. By night, Love, tie your heart to mine, and the two
80. My love, I returned from travel and sorrow
81. And now you’re mine. Rest with your dreams in my dream.
82. As we close this nocturnal door, my love,
83. It’s good to feel you close in the night, Love,
84. Once again, Love, the day’s net extinguishes
85. The vague fog flows from the sea towards the streets
86. O Southern Cross, O clover of fragrant phosphorous:
87. Three birds of the sea, three sunbeams, three scissors
88. March returns with its secretive light,
89. When I die, I want your hands on my eyes:
90. I thought I was dying, I felt the cold up close
91. Age covers us like drizzle;
92. My love, if I die and you don’t—,
93. If some time your breast pauses, if something stops
94. If I die, survive me with such a pure force
95. Whoever loved as we did? Let us hunt
96. I think this time when you loved me
97. These days, one must fly—but where to?
98. And this word, this paper the thousand hands
99. Other days will come, the silence
100. In the center of the earth I will push aside

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  when Rahul first meets Sue/Sunita in the bar, and later when he recites the poem in order to win the heroine in a Romeo and Juliet
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  -esque balcony scene.