“If You Forget MeI want you to knowone thing.You know how this is:if I lookat the crystal moon, at the red branchof the slow autumn at my window,if I touchnear the firethe impalpable ashor the wrinkled body of the log,everything carries me to you,as if everything that exists,aromas, light, metals,were little boatsthat sailtoward those isles of yours that wait for me.Well, now,if little by little you stop loving meI shall stop loving you little by little.If suddenlyyou forget medo not look for me,for I shall already have forgotten you.If you think it long and mad,the wind of bannersthat passes through my life,and you decideto leave me at the shoreof the heart where I have roots,rememberthat on that day,at that hour,I shall lift my armsand my roots will set offto seek another land.Butif each day,each hour,you feel that you are destined for mewith implacable sweetness,if each day a flowerclimbs 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 armswithout leaving mine.”

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About Pablo Neruda

Chilean poet, diplomat and politician

Pablo Neruda was a Chilean poet, diplomat, and politician. He won the 1971 Nobel Prize in Literature, and became known as a poet at 13. His work ranged widely, from surrealist poems and historical epics to political manifestos and a prose autobiography. He is also known for passionate love poetry, including the poems in Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair, published in 1924.

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Books by Pablo Neruda

Veinte poemas de amor y una canción desesperada

1969

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Confieso que he vivido

2001

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Memorial de Isla Negra

1982

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Canto general

1968

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