25 Most Beautiful Pablo Neruda Poems

Pablo Neruda was more than just a Nobel Prize-winning poet from Chile — he was a voice of passion, love, political defiance, and deep human longing. Born Ricardo Eliécer Neftalí Reyes Basoalto in 1904, Neruda wrote with an unmatched intensity that embraced the beauty of ordinary life and the vast mysteries of the cosmos.

His poems range from sultry odes to lost love to politically charged verses that challenged oppression. Known for his sensual metaphors, vivid imagery, and emotional depth, Neruda’s poetry touches hearts and awakens minds.

To read Pablo Neruda is to dive into the human experience with eyes wide open — whether it’s through his explorations of love, death, nature, or resistance. Below are 10 of his most profound and beloved poems, each one a portal into a world where words dance with meaning.

Tonight I Can Write the Saddest Lines

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
Write, for example, “The night is shattered
and the blue stars 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 shattered 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 searches for her as though to go to her.
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.

Summary:

One of Neruda’s most iconic love poems, this piece is a bittersweet farewell to a lost love. It captures the ache of remembering someone once cherished, and the emotional contradiction of still feeling attached even after saying goodbye. The poem is universal in its portrayal of heartbreak and longing.

If You Forget Me

I want you to know
one thing.

You know how this is:
if I look
at the crystal moon, at the red branch
of the slow autumn at my window,
if I touch
near the fire
the impalpable ash
or the wrinkled body of the log,
everything carries me to you,
as if everything that exists,
aromas, light, metals,
were little boats
that sail
toward those isles of yours that wait for me.

Well, now,
if little by little you stop loving me
I shall stop loving you little by little.

If suddenly
you forget me
do not look for me,
for I shall already have forgotten you.

If you think it long and mad,
the wind of banners
that passes through my life,
and you decide
to leave me at the shore
of the heart where I have roots,
remember
that on that day,
at that hour,
I shall lift my arms
and my roots will set off
to seek another land.

But
if each day,
each hour,
you feel that you are destined for me
with implacable sweetness,
if each day a flower
climbs up to your lips to seek me,
ah my love, ah my own,
in me all that fire is repeated,
in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,
my love feeds on your love, beloved,
and as long as you live it will be in your arms
without leaving mine.

Summary:

A moving meditation on the nature of love and memory. Neruda speaks to the fragile balance between loving and forgetting, underscoring how mutual passion is essential for love to survive. It’s a poem of conditions, yet also of fierce commitment.

I Do Not Love You Except Because I Love You

I do not love you except because I love you;
I go from loving to not loving you,
From waiting to not waiting for you
My heart moves from cold to fire.

I love you only because it’s you the one I love;
I hate you deeply, and hating you
Bend to you, and the measure of my changing love for you
Is that I do not see you but love you blindly.

Maybe January light will consume
My heart with its cruel
Ray, stealing my key to true calm.

In this part of the story I am the one who
Dies, the only one, and I will die of love because I love you,
Because I love you, Love, in fire and blood.

Summary:

This powerful contradiction-laced poem describes the intensity of a love so deep it borders on torment. Neruda captures how love can be all-consuming — filled with contradictions, hate, obsession, and beauty — all at once.

Sonnet XVII

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.

I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
rising from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way
than this: where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.

Summary:

A love poem celebrated worldwide, Sonnet XVII expresses love in its purest, most intimate form — beyond logic, time, or individual identity. It’s quiet yet boundless, deeply personal and universal.

Ode to the Sea

Here
Surrounding the island
There’s sea.
But what sea?
It’s always overflowing.

Says yes,
Then no,
Then no again,
Then yes,
In rhythmic green,
In the spring light.

The sea
Confounds us
With its
Swelling and its shrinking.

With its pulls and retreats.

The sea
Sings
Like a guitar.

The sea
Plucks its strings.

From so much
Roaming
It has gathered
A tone and a treasure.

Its lines
Are musical.

Summary:

A tribute to the eternal, mysterious power of the ocean. Neruda turns the sea into a living force that sings, stirs, and shapes the world. The poem captures its beauty, unpredictability, and majesty.

Walking Around

It so happens I am sick of being a man.
It happens that I go into tailorshops and the movies
all shriveled up, impenetrable, like a felt swan

Navigating on a water of origin and ash.
The smell of barber shops makes me sob out loud.
All I want is a break from stones or wool,
I want to escape some days from the still life.

It happens that I am sick of my feet and nails
and my hair and shadow.

I walk through the streets with calm eyes.
I feel like a shipwreck.

Summary:

This surreal and somber piece reflects Neruda’s existential crisis — his frustration with the modern, material world and his desire for authenticity. The poem is raw, disjointed, and haunting in its honesty.

Ode to a Large Tuna in the Market

Here,
among the market vegetables,
this torpedo
from the ocean
deep
lies in front of me:
a dead fish
still in command
of its black-blue velvet,
and all by itself,
austere, in the market’s
morning light.

Summary:

In this quirky yet reverent poem, Neruda gives dignity and depth to a dead tuna displayed in a market. The fish, once a majestic creature of the ocean, lies in still command, embodying the poet’s tendency to find grandeur in the everyday.

Your Laughter

Take bread away from me, if you wish,
take air away, but
do not take from me your laughter.

Do not take away the rose,
the lanceflower that you pluck,
the water that suddenly
bursts forth in joy,
the sudden wave
of silver born in you.

My struggle is harsh and I come back
with eyes tired
at times from having seen
the unchanging earth,
but when your laughter enters
it rises to the sky seeking me
and it opens for me all
the doors of life.

Summary:

This poem is a tender tribute to the power of a loved one’s joy. Neruda places immense value on laughter — it becomes a symbol of hope, healing, and the very sustenance of the soul.

The Light Wraps You

The light wraps you in its mortal flame.
Abstracted pale mourner, standing that way
against the old propellers of the twilight
that revolves around you.

Speechless, my friend,
alone in the loneliness of this hour of the dead
and filled with the lives of fire,
pure heir of the ruined day.

A bough of fruit falls from the sun on your dark garment.
The great roots grow suddenly from your soul,
and the things that hide in you come out again,
so that a blue and palled people
your newly born, takes nourishment.

Summary:

An ethereal and layered poem that captures the beauty of a moment suspended in time. Neruda evokes a haunting atmosphere where grief, light, and inner transformation converge in silence.

Leaning into the Afternoons

Leaning into the afternoons,
I cast my sad nets
towards your oceanic eyes.

There in the highest blaze
my solitude lengthens and flames,
its arms turning like a drowning man’s.

I send out red signals across your absent eyes
that move like the sea near a lighthouse.

You keep only darkness, my distant female,
from your regard sometimes, the coast of dread…

Leaning into the afternoons,
I fling my nets to that sea that beats on your marine eyes.

Summary:

A melancholic love poem where longing becomes a sensory experience. Neruda’s metaphors of oceans, flames, and distance articulate the ache of unreachable love and emotional solitude.

Pablo Neruda’s poetry is not meant to be read — it is meant to be felt. His words live and breathe, wrapping themselves around our deepest emotions, our quietest sorrows, and our wildest passions. Whether he writes of love or war, seashells or revolutions, Neruda reminds us that poetry can be both personal and political, intimate and infinite.

We hope you found a piece of your own soul in the lines above. If one of these poems stirred something in you, don’t keep it to yourself — share it with someone who needs it. And if you’re hungry for more words that move and inspire, stick around. We’ve got more poetic magic coming your way.