Tonight I can write the saddest lines [1924]

                                                                                      - Pablo Neruda

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, and 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. Like my kisses before.
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.

(Tonight, the Poet writes the saddest line that this night brings him sufferings and the stars shiver with fear in the distance. The wind revolves in the sky and sings of the saddest song. He writes because he loved his beloved too much and expected the same love from her. It was some other night like this when he held her in his arms and kissed her, filling her with his endless love. During that time, she too loved him but now she is no more with him. The Poet describes her eyes as greatly beautiful. He writes because he feels he has lost her forever. The night is no more immense without her and his poetry to his soul is like dew to the pasture.

The Poet believes, his love failed to have her with him. The line ‘I no longer love her, that’s certain, but maybe I love her’ is an allegory as the very reason for the Poet to write this poem is because he deeply wishes her to be with him but somewhere he also feels that the love between them is lost. Towards the end he says it’s the last time she is making him suffer and now this would be the last verse that he will write for her. Note how the poem scatters its sadness into natural elements (the night is shattered/and the blue stars shiver in the distance). Again the most important thing to note here is the jealous lover who emphasizes on the fact that ‘she will be another’s’. The poem expresses lyrically the way he made love to his mistress and stresses on the fact that the same ‘love-making’ won’t ever happen again. Moreover, one can say, it’s the idea of love that hurts him deeply instead of the woman he had lost)

Goats and Monkeys[1965]

                                                     - Derek Walcott

'...even now, an old black ram

is tupping your white ewe.'

                           -Othello

(The lines from Shakespeare’s play Othello, Act I, Scene I. Brabantio is warned by Iago about Othello making love to Desdemona)

The owl's torches gutter. Chaos clouds the globe.

Shriek, augury! His earthen bulk

buries her bosom in its slow eclipse.

His smoky hand has charred

that marble throat. Bent to her lips,

he is Africa, a vast, sidling shadow

that halves your world with doubt.

'Put out the light', and God's light is put out.

(The Owl’s sight fades away. There is chaos clouding the globe. There is a bad omen everywhere. Perhaps, something undesirous is going to happen. A scream is heard. ‘His earthen bulk’ referring the huge body of Othello makes love with Desdemona. Her bosom disappears in his body as the moon disappears on a lunar eclipse. His passionate hand has scratched her marble-like white neck and he is bent on her lips. He is dark like the people of Africa. His enormous furtive shadow cuts her world into half with suspicion, a product of Iago’s conspiracy. ‘Put out the light’ as said by Othello in Act V, in literal sense denotes his intention to turn off the lights before murdering Desdemona. Metaphorically, this refers to the killing of Desdemona who is the light of Othello’s world. As the light is murdered, God’s light is also put out. When treated in context with blacks and whites, ‘Put out the light’ denotes the necessary separation between the two. Note the imagery of light associated with Desdemona and that of darkness or shadow linked with Othello)

That flame extinct, she contemplates her dream

of him as huge as night, as bodiless,

as starred with medals, like the moon

a fable of blind stone.

Dazzled by that bull's bulk against the sun

of Cyprus, couldn't she have known

like Pasiphae, poor girl, she'd breed horned monsters?

That like Eurydice, her flesh a flare

travelling the hellish labyrinth of his mind

his soul would swallow hers?

(Desdemona dreams of him at night before she was murdered. He is without a concrete shape like the vastness of night and his medals are the stars that she sees all around her. The poet often describes Desdemona as light (moon). Her dream is described as ‘a fable of blind stone’. Blind stone refers to the blindness of human beings in the face of racial conflicts. Another implication is that love is blind and should stand such conflicting situations. ‘Dazzled by that bull's bulk against the sun’: Note here the animal imagery associated with Othello who is massive in structure. Desdemona is once again associated with a light-emitting object such as sun. Cyprus is a Greek island which is important to the original play by Shakespeare as it is here that half of Othello’s plot is set. The Poet further sympathises with Desdemona and relates her to Pasiphae questioning her innocence on breeding a horned monster (monstrous qualities are associated with Othello). Furthermore, he compares Desdemona to Eurydice who was taken away from her husband eternally to the underground. Desdemona’s flesh glows with beauty but Othello’s mind is suspicious and travels in a hellish maze implying the way he has lost track of his better thoughts. In the last line of this stanza Poet questions the purity of Othello’s soul)

(Pasiphae is a character from Greek mythology who was the daughter of Helios. She was attracted to a splendid bull gifted to her husband by the God Poseidon, she eventually had sexual relations with the bull and gave birth to a monster)

Her white flesh rhymes with night. She climbs, secure.

Virgin and ape, maid and malevolent Moor,

their immortal coupling still halves our world.

He is your sacrificial beast, bellowing, goaded,

a black bull snarled in ribbons of blood.

And yet, whatever fury girded

on the saffron-sunset turban, moon-shaped sword

was not his racial, panther-black revenge

pulsing her chamber with its raw musk, its sweat

but horror of the moon's change,

of the corruption of an absolute,

like a white fruit

pulped ripe by fondling but doubly sweet.

(Desdemona’s white flesh is linked with night (Othello). The couple make love with each other. She is pure, a young beautiful mistress to Othello who in turn is an evil moor. The animal imagery is again associated with Othello when the Poet calls him an ape. ‘Their immortal couple’ denotes the immortality received to the work of Shakespeare (The play Othello) that even after so many centuries has not died away. In ‘He is your sacrificial…doubly sweet’ the animal imagery is stronger than ever. Othello is Desdemona’s sacrificial beast who roars in fury because of Iago’s conspiracy and like an insane bull which gets incited upon the sight of red ribbon, he too gets greatly tormented. The poet attributes Othello with a ‘saffron-sunset turban’ that bears his fury and tells that it was not a racial cause that made him seek revenge. An interesting thing to note here is the association of revenge with panther which deduces revenge as a predator seeking its prey. In Desdemona’s chamber, with his manly prowess, Othello harms the absolute (innocent Desdemona). The moon disapproves of this corruption. Desdemona is like a white fruit fleshed for lovemaking. ‘But doubly sweet’ indicates that the fruit has been tasted by others implying Desdemona’s unfaithfulness that made Othello murder her)

And so he barbarously arraigns the moon

for all she has beheld since time began

for his own night-long lechery, ambition,

while barren innocence whimpers for pardon.

And it is still the moon, she silvers love,

limns lechery and stares at our disgrace.

Only annihilation can resolve

the pure corruption in her dreaming face.

(After murdering her, Othello barbarously accused Desdemona for all she had done since time began but it was his own night long lechery – wickedness driven by lust and ambition, which was to be blamed. Poor and innocent Desdemona could only cry for forgiveness. And it is still her silvery love (enlightened and pure love) that questions our disgrace. Only total destruction can resolve the corruption in Desdemona’s face which is stained like the moon. Note the oxymoron in the ‘pure corruption’ that is upon Desdemona’s dreaming face – Desdemona can be paralleled to various innocent and pure girls who are tricked and then looted of innocence by people like Othello)

A bestial, comic agony. We harden

with mockery at this blackamoor

who turns his back on her, who kills

what, like the clear moon, cannot abhor

her element, night; his grief

farcically knotted in a handkerchief

a sibyl's

prophetically stitched remembrancer

webbed and embroidered with the zodiac,

this mythical, horned beast who's no more

monstrous for being black.

(Othello is savage in his approach and we harden our hearts with ridicule at this black man. He turns his back on her after murdering her. Desdemona is like a clear moon that can never hate her love, night. Othello’s grief was caused by the handkerchief (a false evidence by Iago to prove Desdemona’s disloyalty). This handkerchief is a sibyl’s (forecaster’s) stitched remembrancer (image which invokes past memories) and this mythical tale of a horned beast (Othello) spreads a very important message – Othello’s revenge is never considered a racial crime – He was indeed a fiend, but not because he was a black and Desdemona a white )

A Far Cry From Africa [1962]

                                            -Derek Walcott

A wind is ruffling the tawny pelt

(The Poet introduces the tribe of Kikuyu (Kenya) by telling us of an activity over there. Tawny pelt is a brownish orange skin perhaps of an animal). A wind is upon the skin of Africa)

Of Africa. Kikuyu, quick as flies

(Kikuyu is a native tribe of Kenya)

Batten upon the bloodstreams of the veldt.

(Veldt an open grassland of Africa. Flies feed greedily on the blood (on the dead bodies) caused by uprisings.)

Corpses are scattered through a paradise.

(Paradise here implies the supreme beauty of Africa. Note how paradise is paralleled with corpses which implies the catastrophic effect of Mau Mau uprisings.)

Only the worm, colonel of carrion, cries:

‘Waste no compassion on these separate dead!’
(The worms which feed on the corpses have no compassion; implying the dead (one referred here) indeed deserve such nasty treatment. Carrion refers to the decaying flesh of dead animals. The poet parallels dead human beings as animals in order to show the savagery in battles. Note the alliteration when the worm is referred to as colonel (of a superior rank) who has full power over the dead flesh)

Statistics justify and scholars seize

The salients of colonial policy,

(When huge masses are killed, their deaths are justified by the others in power (The Mau Mau uprisings (1950s) against the British Imperialists, where both parties lost huge number of lives). Scholars think and talk about the issues, the irony being they themselves at times support the cause or back the people (the colonizers in this case) who bring death upon the rest. Note the use of ‘salients’, the plural form of the adjective which means significant aspects. ‘The salients of colonial policy’ can be understood as a bitter satire as for ‘colonial policy’ was never meant to cause harm to the backward natives instead ‘civilize’ them to the standards of the colonizers but what happened was exactly the opposite)

What is that to the white child hacked in bed?

To savages, expendable as Jews?

(Now the most important thing to understand here is that Derek Walcott was neither supporting the brutality implemented by the colonizers nor approving the cruelty of African natives towards them. ‘White child hacked in bed’ refers to the attack by the natives to the British colonizers and ‘to savages, expendable as Jews?’ is a question to the whites with a further reference to the Hitler’s concentration camps that took lives of over six million Jews)

Threshed out by beaters, the long rushes break

In a white dust of ibises whose cries

Have wheeled since civilization’s dawn

From the parched river or beast-teeming plain.

(In the second stanza, the Poet begins afresh with much of animal imagery. Initially, a native practise is introduced where the grain is separated by beating it suggesting a constructive manual labour for life. The Poet then refers to the beginning of time when the sound of ibises (large wading birds with long curved beaks) ‘have wheeled’ in the skies. Note the combination of sound and sight when cries of ibises and their movement (wheeled or rotated) are interlinked. Furthermore, animals rush or migrate to places where they can survive with water facilities and other surviving conditions. Note, initial human civilization too began on this notion and rivers and water bodies were among the first places where human beings settled down)

The violence of beast on beast is read                

As natural law, but upright man

Seeks his divinity by inflicting pain.

(The poet tells that the violence of an animal to another animal is nature’s law. But he is critical of the fact that human beings follow the same path and are cruel and heartless to their own brethren. They seek sadistic pleasure (satirically divinity here) by causing pain to others.)

Delirious as these worried beasts, his wars

Dance to the tightened carcass of a drum,

(Mad and worried of being hunted down, humans too attack their counterparts causing death and bloodsheds. ‘Tightened carcass’ refers to the skin of any animal used to cover the mouth of a drum. Note that ‘his wars dance’ has a significance in the African context. Most of the tribes indulge in traditional dance with drums on various ceremonial occasions which also include occasions before battles)

While he calls courage still that native dread        

Of the white peace contracted by the dead.

(‘He’ is referred to as anyone who is a part of this tribe. Here ‘he’ asks or prays for courage and bravery because he fears the ‘White peace’ that was contracted or signed by his ancestors. ‘Still that native dread of the white peace’ refers to the fear that the natives have of the white people who will eventually influence their tradition and culture. ‘White peace’ is a notion implying ‘white terror’ as the colonizers never did what they intended or what they told the ancestors of the tribes.)

Again brutish necessity wipes its hands

Upon the napkins of a dirty cause, again

A waste of our compassion, as with Spain,

(‘Brutish necessity’ are cruel needs that wipes its hands upon the napkins of dirty issues. The Poet suggests that dirty politics is played for the accomplishment of the cruel needs of colonizers. ‘A waste of our compassion, as with Spain’ brings the colonial example of Spain into picture. Spain initially colonised parts of America in the 16^th century. When Columbus tried to find a sea route to India and ended up on an island which was later named West Indies, the initial conquest of Spain began. This episode marked the beginning of European colonization to the rest of the world)

The gorilla wrestles with the superman.

(Gorilla is a symbolic representation of African black-skinned who wrestles with the superman or the white skinned. Superman denotes the progress of the whites in terms of technology and knowledge)

I who am poisoned with the blood of both,

Where shall I turn, divided to the vein?

(The Poet is in a dilemma as he holds dual cultural heritage i.e. blood of both whites and blacks run through his vein. ‘Poisoned’ refers to the contamination of blood with a history of massacres and acts of inhumaneness.)

I who have cursed

The drunken officer of British rule, how choose

Between this Africa and the English tongue I love?

(The Poet curses the ‘drunken officer of British rule’ who is a drunk man in the sense he gives inhumane instructions. Again he expresses his dilemma in choosing between Africa and English (or the language of the colonizers) the medium of language he loves the most)

Betray them both, or give back what they give?

How can I face such slaughter and be cool?

How can I turn from Africa and live?

(He is confused whether to betray them both by refusing either cultures. He wishes to ‘give back what they give’ in a sense either giving away the language of colonizers (English or French) or learn of the language of the Africans. Note here, the Poet cannot stand the brutality of the colonizers and for him it is tough to give away their language as well. But without doing that he believes he will turn away from Africa and in such situation it would be again tough for him to live. Derek Walcott indirectly represents the complexity of a situation with these lines)