“Tonight I Can Write the Saddest Lines” appears in Pablo Neruda’s second book of poetry, Twenty Songs of Love and a Song of Despair (1924), which established Neruda’s literary reputation. Unlike Neruda’s euphemistic language in other poems of the time, this short tome describes romantic encounters with open sensuality. It is a poem in free verse in which a grief-stricken speaker laments the loss of a relationship. Utilizing language that is both understated and hyperbolic, as well as song-like, Neruda depicts the power of nature (especially night), the changeable essence of love, and the way emotions can profoundly inspire and affect creativity.

Neruda wrote many love poems and had many affairs. He was married three times, and his later collection 100 Love Sonnets (1959) expresses many of the themes of his second book and employs many of the stylistic elements that made his early work popular.

In addition to love poems, Neruda is known for his political and nationalistic poetry. He was an avid socialist, a diplomat, and at one point an elected Communist senator of Chile. After criticizing Chilean president Gabriel Gonzales Videla in a speech on the senate floor, however, a warrant was issued for his arrest. Neruda fled into exile, moving among allies’ homes for two years. In 1971, he was the second Chilean awarded the Nobel Prize, the first being Neruda’s early mentor, poet Gabriela Mistal.

Recent criticism of Neruda’s work includes his treatment of women, both in his life and in his work. Some even suggest that he should not be taught as frequently in universities. Still, Neruda remains one of Chile’s most famous poets. To date, Twenty Songs of Love and a Song of Despair is the most widely sold Spanish language book in the world.

Poet Biography

Pablo Neruda was born Ricardo Eliécer Neftalí Reyes Basoalto on July 12, 1904. His mother, Rosa Neftalí Basoalto Opazo, a teacher and avid reader of poetry, died shortly after he was born. His father, a railway worker, remarried a woman who became a surrogate mother to the young Neruda. Neruda grew up in Temuco, in the South of Chile, where he showed an aptitude for poetry at a young age, but when his father caught him writing it, he gave Neruda a whipping. He later published under the name Pablo Neruda as a way to hide his writing from his father.

In school, Neruda sought the help of Gabriela Mistral, a poet who was the principal of the Temuco local girls’ school. Mistral would go on to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, as would Neruda. Mistral introduced Neruda to the European poets, particularly Russian poets such as Pushkin, and encouraged his writing. In 1923, Neruda published Crepusculario (Book of Twilights); the following year, his second book, Twenty Songs of Love and a Song of Despair, became a sensation.

Struggling to make a living as a poet, Neruda took a job as a diplomat and was sent to Myanmar (formerly Burma) and Sri Lanka. In Buenos Aires, Argentina, he met Surrealist poet and dissident Gabriela Garcia Lorca, who became a lifelong friend and mentor. In Madrid, 1934, Neruda witnessed atrocities in the Spanish Civil War, and his work became more political. Like many poets of his time, Neruda became a communist, supporting Stalin in Russia. He later became disillusioned with that regime but never abandoned the ideals of socialism itself. In 1936, his friend Lorca was executed by the right-wing Franco regime in Spain.

Neruda returned to Chile and entered politics, leading to his exile when Communism was outlawed. While in hiding, he wrote Canto General (1950), which retells the history of Central America. At age 66, Neruda, having returned to Chile, ran for president but yielded his efforts to his friend Salvador Allende. He became an advisor to this left-wing leader until Allende was overthrown by General Augusto Pinochet in the CIA-backed 1973 violent coup. Pinochet killed many of Neruda’s friends, and Neruda died shortly thereafter. The hospital recorded his death as the result of cancer, but some believe he may have been assassinated or that he died of a broken heart.

Neruda married three times in his life and had dozens of affairs. He sired one daughter, who lived with her mother in the Netherlands until she died at age eight. He wrote love poetry, political poetry, and poems that made use of nature as a metaphor.

Poem Text

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

Write, for example, ‘The night is starry and the stars are blue and shiver in the distance.’

The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

Through nights like this one I held her in my arms.

I kissed her again and again under the endless sky.

She loved me, sometimes I loved her too.

How could one not have loved her great still eyes.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her.

To hear the immense night, still more immense without her.

And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture.

What does it matter that my love could not keep her.

The night is starry and she is not with me.

This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance.

My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

My sight tries to find her as though to bring her closer.

My heart looks for her, and she is not with me.

The same night whitening the same trees.

We, of that time, are no longer the same.

I no longer love her, that’s certain, but how I loved her.

My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing.

Another’s. She will be another’s. As she was before my kisses.

Her voice, her bright body. Her infinite eyes.

I no longer love her, that’s certain, but maybe I love her.

Love is so short, forgetting is so long.

Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms

my soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer

and these the last verses that I write for her.

Neruda, Pablo. “Tonight I Can Write the Saddest Lines.” Translated by W. S. Merwin. Allpoetry.com, 1924.

Summary

The speaker begins by stating that they “can write the saddest lines” (Line 1) of poetry, then provides an example of what such lines might be: “The night is starry and the stars are blue and shiver in the / distance” (Lines 2-3). They note that the wind “revolves” (Line 4)—or turns in a circle—in the sky, singing.

The speaker repeats their ability to “write the saddest lines” (Line 5), then turns to memories of past love, explaining that they once had a partner whom they “loved” (Line 6) and who “sometimes” (Line 6) loved the speaker. The speaker recalls how they “held her” (Line 7) on a night similar to this one, and kissed her under a sky that seemed “endless” (Line 8).

The speaker now suggests that their lover did love the speaker, and that the speaker only “sometimes” (Line 9) loved their partner. In the next line, however, the speaker questions anyone who couldn’t fall in love with their ex-partner’s “great still” eyes (Line 10).

The speaker again repeats their ability to write the “saddest lines” (11). Next, they state that their partner is now “lost” (Line 12). The night, which used to feel endless while kissing her, feels even bigger—“more immense” (Line 13)— now that she’s gone. This feeling of loss causes the speaker’s poetry “to [fall to] the soul like dew to the pasture” (Line 14), a natural event.

The speaker then asks a rhetorical question: “What does it matter that my love could not keep her” (Line 15). There is no question mark because this is a statement more than a question. After this reflection, the speaker turns back to the external facts, that the night is “starry” (Line 16) and that their lover is gone. They then hear “singing” (Line 17) in the distance and state that their soul is “unsatisfied” (Line 18). Their longing persists.

The speaker’s “sight” (Line 19) searches out for their lover, as does their “heart” (Line 20). The poem returns to night imagery, and the speaker compares the night to the nights they spent with their lover—the night is the “same” (Line 21). Now, however, the people at night are different because the speaker and their former lover are no longer together—“no longer the same” (Line 22).

For the first time, the speaker declares it’s “certain” (Line 23) they no longer love the partner, but “how [they] loved her” (Line 23) was so strong that they used to  try to speak on “the wind” (Line 24) so that the words would reach her ears.

The speaker then speculates that she will likely find a new lover and “be another’s” partner (Line 25), as she was before even meeting the speaker. They recall her “bright body” (Line 26) and other beloved physical features that will now be enjoyed by another person.

The speaker then contradicts themself, saying, “maybe I love her” (Line 27), before reflecting on love in general, writing, “Love is so short, forgetting is so long” (Line 28)—the time spent forgetting a love lasts longer than the love itself. They recall that on previous nights “like this one” (Line 29), they held their partner, commenting on how unhappy they are now that she’s gone: “[M]y soul is not satisfied” (Line 30).

In the final lines, the speaker declares that they will no longer “suffer” (Line 31) on account of the former lover. The end of the poem, the last the speaker will “write for her” (Line 32), declares the end of the speaker’s pain.