PABLO NERUDA is arguably one of the most prominent figures in Latin American literature. He was a Chilean poet, diplomat, and politician who was elected to the Chilean senate under the Communist Party of Chile (one of my dislikes about him). He also is one of only two Chilean Nobel Prize winners, the other being Gabriela Mistral, another poet/diplomat. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1971.
(Note: I am using the same punctuation as the poet does in Spanish when I translate it, so if it looks a bit off, that's why.)
Spanish
Puedo escribir los versos más tristes esta noche.
Escribir, por ejemplo : 'La noche está estrellada,
y tiritan, azules, los astros, a lo lejos'.
El viento de la noche gira en el cielo y canta.
Puedo escribir los versos más tristes esta noche.
Yo la quise, y a veces ella también me quiso.
En las noches como ésta la tuve entre mis brazos.
La besé tantas veces bajo el cielo infinito.
Ella me quiso, a veces yo también la quería.
Cómo no haber amado sus grandes ojos fijos.
Puedo escribir los versos más tristes esta noche.
Pensar que no la tengo. Sentir que la he perdido.
Oir la noche immensa, más inmensa sin ella.
Y el verso cae al alma como al pasto el rocío.
Qué importa que mi amor no pudiera guardarla.
La noche está estrellada y ella no está conmigo.
Eso es todo. A lo lejos alguien canta. A lo lejos.
Mi alma no se contenta con haberla perdido.
Como para acercarla mi mirada la busca.
Mi corazón la busca, y ella no está conmigo.
La misma noche que hace blanquear los mismos arboles.
Nosotros, los de entonces, ya no somos los mismos.
Ya no la quiero, es cierto pero cuánto la quise.
Mi voz buscaba el viento para tocar su oído.
De otro. Será de otro. Como antes de mis besos.
Su voz, su cuerpo claro. Sus ojos infinitos.
Ya no la quiero, es cierto, pero tal vez la quiero.
Es tan corto el amor, y es tan largo el olvido.
Porque en noches como ésta la tuve entre mis brazos,
mi alma no se contenta con haberla perdido.
Aunque ésta sea el último dolor que ella me causa,
y éstos sean los últimos versos que yo le escribo.
English
I can write the saddest verses tonight.
Write, for example: "The night is starry, and far away the blue stars shiver".
The wind of the night turns in the sky and sings.
I can write the saddest verses tonight.
I loved her, and sometimes she also loved me.
On nights like these I held her in my arms.
I kissed her so many times beneath the infinite sky.
She loved me, and sometimes I loved her.
How could I not have loved those large fixed eyes
I can write the saddest verses tonight.
To think I don't have her. to feel I have lost her.
I hear the immense night, more immense without her.
And the verse falls to the soul as the dew on the grass.
what does it matter that my love could not keep her.
The night is starry and she is not with me.
That is all. in the distance someone sings. in the distance.
My soul is not content with losing her.
Almost as to draw her closer my gaze does search for her.
My heart searches for her, and she is not with me
The same night that whitens the same trees.
Ourselves, of that time, we are not the same.
I no longer love her, that is true but how I loved her.
My voice searched in the wind to touch her ear.
Of another, she will be of another. like before my kisses.
Her voice, he bright body. Her infinite eyes.
I no longer love her, such is true, but perhaps I love her.
Love is so short, and the forgetting is so long.
Because on nights like these I held her in my arms,
my soul is not content with losing her.
Even if this is the last pain she causes me,
and these the last verses I write for her.
