Monday, March 02, 2009

Pablo Neruda's "Tonight I can write the saddest lines"

"Tonight I Can Write The Saddest Lines
I can write the saddest lines of all, tonight.

Write, like: 'The night is broken,
and the stars, blue, are trembling in the distance..

Whirling around in the sky, the lonely night wind sang...

Tonight I can render the saddest words.
I loved her once , maybe she too loved me sometime.

How many nights like this, I held her in my arms.
Kissed her over and over, beneath the boundless sky.

She loved me profoundly, I too loved her many a time.
How could I not have loved those love filled deep still eyes?

This night I can Write the saddest poem of all,
I can think I don't have her, feel that I've lost her.

To hear the immense night, more immense without her.
And like dew fall on the grass, the poem drops down to the soul.

What matters now, when my love couldn't hold her.
The night is broken and she is not with me.

There ends the grief. Far away, far beyond my sight, someone sang.


As if to get close, my eyes search for her, again.
she is not with me but my heart seek her still.

That night, those trees whitened in moonlight, may still be the same.
Not we, we are the same lovers no longer; we changed, we changed a lot.

I will no longer love her, true, but how much I loved her.
My voice searched for the wind to brush her ear.

Someone else's. She will be someone else's. like she once belonged to my kisses.
So will her voice, her serene light body. Her infinite eyes.

I will never again love her, true, but perhaps I might love her.
Love is so short, oblivion so long...

Because its on nights like this that in my arms I held her so close,
my soul turns restless on having lost her forever.

Although this may be the last pain she causes me,
Although this may be the last poem I write for her."


ps : Pablo Neruda's this poem has been translated a 1000 times...
This one is my tribute,adding up a little more emotion which i felt the other translations never tried to portray... with due regards to Pablo Neruda, various English translators, Malayalam Translation by Chullikkad - on whose works this is based upon.