I Like For You To Be Still by Pablo Neruda

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In the poem “I like for you to be still”, Pablo Neruda expressed his unreachable heart calling to his loved one. He described his love towards his loved one without saying a word, understanding her feelings from her silence, and act accordingly to make her fell that he cares about here. True feelings of love remain same even though there is no response comes from the other side. Selfless act just to get a single word out of her mouth or a little smile on her face which makes him feel happy, and this poem is about that passionate love.
The tone of this poem is heavyhearted though it changes at the end a little bit. The words like- absent, far away, melancholy, silence, and died set the depressing tone of this poem. Those words represent the feelings of a potentially vulnerable, heartbroken person (in this case the person is Neruda) who is afraid of losing his loved one. Neruda is afraid and sad that his loved one might disappear from his life someday, but he does not really know why. He is trying out to understand what might be the reason, but he seems to get no response from the other side because she is silent. For instance Neruda writes, “it is as thought you were absent / and you hear me from far away and my voice does not touch you” (1-2). He also writes, “And let me talk to your silence”(12). This certainly show the point that he is calling her, trying to reach her out but no response is coming from the other end. He becomes so desperate that, he is even ready to talk to her silence.
The heavyhearted tone which is set from the very beginning is evident throughout the poem in all the five stanzas. In the first stanza, Neruda writes “It seems as though your eyes had flown away” (3) which certainly captures the feelings of ...

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... “absent”. Therefore the thought could be interpreted as her absence and lack of response making him feel like she is dead and that making him sand and lonely.
Love is something people often realize after it is lost. When somebody has it, they do not realize the importance of it in their life. However, once it is gone or taken away from them, then they realize what a precious thing they had. Then they try to make up for it. If they are unlucky they may not be able to make it up ever. This fact can be seen in the Neruda’s poem “I like for you to be still” and also in our current. Therefore, the suggesting is try to appreciate the loved ones before you lose them forever.

Works Cited

Neruda, Pablo. “I Like For You To Be Still.” Trans. Mark Eisner. The
Essential Neruda. Ed. Mark Eisner. San Francisco, City Lights, 2004. 7.
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