Anatomy of a Poem—Your Laughter, by Pablo Neruda
A step-by-step guide to reading one of Neruda’s most beloved poems.
Pablo Neruda, one of the literary world’s most beloved poets, was born in Chile in 1904. An active politician and advocate in addition to prolific poet, Neruda’s life was complicated and often laced with great sadness. Today, however, we focus on a beautiful poem of his from his collection entitled “The Captain’s Verses”. Let us walk through it stanza by stanza together, and then read the work in its entirety.
Your Laughter
Take bread away from me, if you wish,
Take air away, but
Do not take from me your laugher.
Here we begin the theme of the poem—the desperate need of laughter from a loved one. Immediately, we learn that the narrator is willing to give up the two basic vitalities of life, breath and nourishment, for the sake of his lover’s laughter. We are meant to read this as a lighthearted saying, something he says to tease and compliment his love. Imagine we are in their kitchen as she prepares dinner. He reminds her of a scrape they got into years ago, and she throws her head back in laughter. He laughs too, grabs a slice of bread from the counter, and dramatically declares: take bread away from me, if you wish, take air away, but do not take from me your laughter! She rolls her eyes, still chuckling, and they move on. This is our queue to move on as well.
Do not take away the rose,
The lance flower that you pluck,
The water that suddenly
Bursts forth in joy,
The sudden wave
Of silver born in you.
Now we begin to see her as she laughs—her bright, full lips blooming as she smiles, the bouquet that appears as her face lights up. Notice this poem is not about a chuckle or a giggle: her laughter is so full that tears stream down her face in joy. Her laughter is rich, clear, and precious, like silver. These qualities are born in her, a perfect reflection of her in our narrator’s eyes. We hear first his declaration of love for her laughter, and now we see her laughter ourselves, and love it too.
My struggle is harsh and I come back
With eyes tired
At times from having seen
The unchanging earth,
But when your laughter enters
It rises to the sky seeking me
And it opens for me all
The doors of life.
Suddenly we are back to our daily life, laboring long and often without yielding satisfactory results. We feel the exhaustion of exertion and the frustration of a corrupt world that only ever seems to remain and grow in its corruption. This is no foreign concept, and it is easy to sink into that feeling of coming home burnt out from the day, even when your day has had no exceptional wrong in it. But, rising up to the sky, seeking us is her laughter. It extends out to greet us before we meet her, it lifts our spirits and brings us to the very doors of life, happy and content, in anticipation of her. Her laugh has power to uplift.
My love, in the darkest
Hour your laughter
opens, and if suddenly
You see my blood staining
The stones of the street,
Laugh, because your laughter
Will be for my hands
Like a fresh sword.
Here we begin to meet our narrator, to see the man that our laughing mistress loves. He is not immortal, their future is not guaranteed. We can imagine ourselves in a Capulet and Montague situation, where one outburst could ruin these two. We hear echoes of Neruda’s political involvement, of the riots he is all too familiar with, of the temporal nature of his activism. Even here, though, with blood in the streets, we hear her laughter. Her laugh is like a fresh sword: this is to say that it is the very thing he fights for.
Next to the sea in the autumn,
Your laughter must raise
Its foamy cascade,
And in the spring, love,
I want your laughter like
The flower I was waiting for,
The blue flower, the rose
Of my echoing country.
Although this stanza again sounds her laughter on our ears, it also reveals to us another side of our narrator. He is no longer the cynic who protests in the streets, but the poet who walks along the shore. He is the patriot who loves his country; its shores, its seasons, its flowers, and it is this beauty of home, of nationalism, that he finds also in her presence and in her laughter. It is impossible to tell from the poem whether he still lives in his homeland (the flower he was looking for, but is no longer), but this stanza tells us he still lives in his home, for it is filled with all the same beauties, manifested in his lover’s laughter.
Laugh at the night,
At the day, at the moon,
Laugh at the twisted
Streets of the island,
Laugh at this clumsy
Boy who loves you,
But when I open
My eyes and close them,
When my steps go,
When my steps return,
Deny me bread, air,
light, spring,
But never your laughter
For I would die.
Here we see the great summary of all the stanzas: hearken back to the simplicity of laughter and its subject, to the island streets that are unpredictable, to the springtime and the blooming flowers, to the narrator who lovingly teases, and, finally, to the bread and the air. We return to that kitchen scene, so to speak: to that moment when he declares his love for her laughter, but we do not see it the same way. In this one fleeting moment, we see all things necessary in life echoed in one hearty laugh, and that laughter fills us richly with hope, joy, and fortitude, which will drive us through our days, our weeks, and our years, searching for as many moments of laughter as we possibly can find.
Your Laughter, by Pablo Neruda
Take bread away from me, if you wish,
Take air away, but
Do not take from me your laugher.
Do not take away the rose,
The lance flower that you pluck,
The water that suddenly
Bursts forth in joy,
The sudden wave
Of silver born in you.
My struggle is harsh and I come back
With eyes tired
At times from having seen
The unchanging earth,
But when your laughter enters
It rises to the sky seeking me
And it opens for me all
The doors of life.
My love, in the darkest
Hour your laughter
opens, and if suddenly
You see my blood staining
The stones of the street,
Laugh, because your laughter
Will be for my hands
Like a fresh sword.
Next to the sea in the autumn,
Your laughter must raise
Its foamy cascade,
And in the spring, love,
I want your laughter like
The flower I was waiting for,
The blue flower, the rose
Of my echoing country.
Laugh at the night,
At the day, at the moon,
Laugh at the twisted
Streets of the island,
Laugh at this clumsy
Boy who loves you,
But when I open
My eyes and close them,
When my steps go,
When my steps return,
Deny me bread, air,
light, spring,
But never your laughter
For I would die.