Pablo Neruda

Farewell

I
From deep inside you and kneeling
A sad child, like me, looks at us.

For that life that will burn in his veins
Should our lives be tied up.

For those hands, daughters of your hands,
Should my hands kill.

Through his open eyes on the earth
I will see tears on yours one day.


II
I don't want it, Beloved.

To avoid being tied up
Let nothing unite us.

Not the word which perfumed your mouth,
Nor what words said.

Not even the love feast that we did not have,
Or your sobs by the window.


III
(I love the love of sailors
Who kiss and go.

They leave a promise.
They never return.

A woman waits in every port:
Sailors kiss and go .

One night they lie with death
On the seabed.


IV
I love the love that is shared
With kisses, bed and bread.

Love that can be eternal
And can also be brief

Love that wants to free itself
In order to love again.

Deified love that comes close
Deified love that leaves)


V
My eyes will not delight themselves in yours anymore,
My pain will not be sweetened by you anymore.

But wherever I go I will take with me your Gaze
And wherever you go you will take my pain.

I was yours, you were mine.
What else? Together we made

A bend on the route where love went past.
I was yours, you were mine.

You will belong to the one who loves you,
To the one who cuts in your orchard that which I have planted.

I am leaving now. I am sad: but I'm always sad.
I come from your arms. I don't know where I'm going.

...From your heart a child says farewell.

And I say farewell to him.