Have been re-reading recently the magnificent Pablo Neruda's Captain's Verses. A writer who I have long admired whose work who continues to inspire. He led a life charged with poetic and political energy and activity, and is now regarded as one of the greatest major poets of the last century. His poems charged with sensuality and passion. Here is a link to a previous post of mine about this poet of love :- https://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.co.uk/2009/10/pablo-neruda-july-12-1904-september-23.html .
Here I offer his rather beautiful "Epithalamium " which I dedicate to my lovely partner Jane. The mighty furbster Hope you enjoy.
Epithalamium
Do you remember when
in winter
we reached the island?
The sea raised toward us
a crown of cold.
On the walls the climbing vines
murmured letting
dark leaves fall
as we passed.
ou too were a little leaf
that trembled on my chest.
Life's wind put you there.
At first I dd not see you : I did not know
that you were walking with me,
until your roots
pierced my chest,
joined the threads of my blood,
spoke through my mouth,
flourished with me.
Thus was your inadvetant presence,
invisible leaf or branch,
and suddenly my heart
was filled with fruits and sounds.
You occupied the house
that darkly awaited you
and then you lit the lamp.
Do you remember, my love,
our first steps on the island?
The gray stones knew us,
the rain squalls,
the shouts of the wind in the shadow.
But the fire was
our only friend,
next to it we hugged
the sweet winter love
with four arms.
The fire saw our naked kiss grow
until it touched hidden stars,
and it saw grief be born and die
like a broken sword
against invincible love.
Do you remember,
oh sleeper in my shadow,
how sleep would grow
in you,
from your bare breast
open with its twin domes
toward the sea, toward the wind of the island,
and how I in your dream sailed
free, in the sea and in the wind
yet tied and sunken
in the blue volume of your sweetness?
Oh sweet, my sweet,
spring changed
the island's walls.
A flower appeared like a drop
of orange blood,
and then the colors discharged
all their pure weight.
The sea reconquered its transparency,
night in the sky
outlined its clusters
and now all things murmured
our name of love, stone by stone
they said our name and our kiss.
The island of stone and moss
echoes in the secret of its grottoes
like the song in your mouth
and the flower that war born
between the crevices of the stone
with its secret syllable
spoke, as it passed, your name
of blazing plant
and the steep rock, raised
like the wall of the world,
knew my song , well beloved,
because earth, time, sea, island,
life, tide,
the seed that half opens
its lips in the earth,
the devouring flower,
the movement of spring,
everything recognizes us.
Our love was born
outside the wall,
in the wind,
in the night,
in the earth,
and that's why the clay and the flower,
the mud and the roots
know your name,
and know that my mouth
joined yours
because we were sown together in the earth
and we alone did not know it
and that we grow together
and flower together
and therefore
when we pass
your name is on the petals
of the rose that grows on the stone,
my name is in the grottoes.
They know it all,
we have no secrets,
we have grown together
but we did not know it.
The sea knows our love, the stones
of the rocky height
that our kisses flowered
with infinite purity,
as in their crevices a scarlet
mouth dawns:
just as our love and the kiss
that joins your mouth and mine
in an eternal flower.
My love,
sweet spring,
flower and sea, surround us.
We did not change it
for our winter,
when the wind,
began to decipher your name
that today at all hours it repeats,
when
the leaves did not know
that you were a leaf,
when
the roots
did not know that you were seeking me
in my breast.
Love, love,
spring
offers us the sky
but the dark earth
is our name,
our love belongs
to all time and the eath.
Loving each other, my arm
beneath your neck of sand,
we shall wait
as earth and time change
on the island,
as the leaves fall,
from the silent climbing vines,
as autumn departs
through the broken window.
But we
are going to wait for
our friend,
our red-eyed friend,
the fire,
when the wind again
shakes the frontiers of the island
and does not know the names
of everyone,
winter
will seek us, my love,
always
it will seek us, because we know it,
because we do not fear it,
because we have
with us
fire
forever,
we have
earth with us
forever,
spring with us
forever,
and when a leaf
falls
from the climbing vines,
you know, my love,
what name is written
on that leaf,
a name that is yours and mine,
our lve name, a single
being, the arrow
that pierced winter,
the invincible love,
the fire of the days,
a leaf
that dropped upon my breast,
a leaf from the tree
of life
that made a nest and sang,
that put out roots,
that gave flowers and fruits.
And so you see, my love,
how I move
around the island,
around the world,
safe in the midst of spring,
crazy with the light in the cold,
walking tranquil in the fire,
lifting your petal
weight in my arms
as if I had never walked
except with you my heart,
as if I could not walk
except with you,
as if I could not sing
except when you sing.
Reprinted from :- The Captain's Verses
- Pablo Neruda; New Directions Press 1973,
Translated by Donald D. Walsh
