Enigma with Flower
Victory. It has come late, I had not learnt
how to arrive, like the lily, at will,
the white figure, that pierces
the motionless eternity of earth,
pushing at clear, faint, form,
till the hour strikes: that clay,
with a white ray, or a spur of milk.
Shedding of clothing, the thick darkness of soil,
on whose cliff the fair flower advances,
till the flag of its whiteness
defeats the contemptible deep of night,
and, from the motion of light,
spills itself in astonished seed.
Enigma with Flower
About the poet
Pablo Neruda
Ricardo Eliécer Neftalí Reyes Basoalto (12 July 1904 – 23 September 1973), better known by his pen name and, later, legal name Pablo Neruda, was a Nobel Prize winning Chilean poet-diplomat and politician. Neruda became known as a poet when he was 13 years old…
View profile & all 68 Poems / StoriesMore from Pablo Neruda
Tonight I can write the saddest lines
Tonight I can write the saddest lines.Write, for example,'The night is shattered
Don't go far off
Don't go far off, not even for a day, because --because -- I don't know how to say it: a day is long
When I die
When I die I want your hands on my eyes:I want the light and the wheat of your beloved hands
Die slowly
Die slowlyHe who becomes the slave of habit,
Here I love you
Here I love you.In the dark pines the wind disentangles itself.
