The Chilean poet Pablo Neruda included "Tonight I can write the saddest lines," a.k.a. "Poem 20," in his collection Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair (Veinte poemas de amor y una cancion desesperada). First published in 1924, when Neruda was just 19 years old, the collection charts the course of love, lust, and heartbreak. In this particular poem (the title of which actually just refers to its first line), the speaker confronts the loneliness, pain, and confusion of a break-up. Without his beloved by his side, the starry night seems cold and foreboding to the speaker, who struggles to accept that a love that once felt endless love has, in fact, ended for good—leaving the speaker with no company apart from the painful memory of what he's lost.
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The Full Text of “Tonight I can write the saddest lines”
The Full Text of “Tonight I can write the saddest lines”
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“Tonight I can write the saddest lines” Summary
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“Tonight I can write the saddest lines” Themes
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Love, Memory, and Heartache
Where this theme appears in the poem:- Lines 1-32
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The Power of Poetry
Where this theme appears in the poem:- Lines 1-3
- Line 5
- Line 11
- Line 14
- Line 16
- Lines 31-32
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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “Tonight I can write the saddest lines”
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Lines 1-3
Tonight I can ...
... in the distance." -
Lines 4-6
The night wind ...
... loved me too. -
Lines 7-10
Through nights like ...
... great still eyes. -
Lines 11-14
Tonight I can ...
... to the pasture. -
Lines 15-16
What does it ...
... not with me. -
Lines 15-20
What does it ...
... not with me. -
Lines 21-24
The same night ...
... touch her hearing. -
Lines 25-26
Another’s. She will ...
... Her infinite eyes. -
Lines 27-30
I no longer ...
... has lost her. -
Lines 29-32
Because through nights ...
... write for her.
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“Tonight I can write the saddest lines” Symbols
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The Wind/Singing
Where this symbol appears in the poem:- Line 4: “The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.”
- Line 17: “In the distance someone is singing. In the distance.”
- Line 24: “My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing.”
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The Night Sky
Where this symbol appears in the poem:- Lines 2-3: “"The night is starry / and the stars are blue and shiver in the distance."”
- Line 4: “The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.”
- Line 8: “I kissed her again and again under the endless sky.”
- Line 16: “The night is starry and she is not with me.”
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“Tonight I can write the saddest lines” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language
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Caesura
Where caesura appears in the poem:- Line 2: “Write, for example, "The”
- Line 6: “her, and”
- Line 9: “loved me, sometimes”
- Line 12: “her. To”
- Line 13: “night, still”
- Line 17: “all. In,” “singing. In”
- Line 22: “We, of,” “then, are”
- Line 25: “Another’s. She,” “another’s. As”
- Line 26: “voice, her,” “body. Her”
- Line 28: “short, forgetting”
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End-Stopped Line
Where end-stopped line appears in the poem:- Line 1: “lines.”
- Line 3: “distance."”
- Line 4: “sings.”
- Line 5: “lines.”
- Line 6: “too.”
- Line 7: “arms.”
- Line 8: “sky.”
- Line 9: “too.”
- Line 10: “eyes.”
- Line 11: “lines.”
- Line 12: “ her.”
- Line 13: “her.”
- Line 14: “pasture.”
- Line 15: “her.”
- Line 16: “me.”
- Line 17: “distance.”
- Line 18: “her.”
- Line 19: “closer.”
- Line 20: “me.”
- Line 21: “trees.”
- Line 22: “same.”
- Line 23: “her.”
- Line 24: “hearing.”
- Line 25: “kisses.”
- Line 26: “eyes.”
- Line 27: “her.”
- Line 28: “long.”
- Line 30: “her.”
- Line 32: “her.”
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Juxtaposition
Where juxtaposition appears in the poem:- Lines 5-8: “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.”
- Line 13: “To hear the immense night, still more immense without her.”
- Lines 21-22: “The same night whitening the same trees. / We, of back then, are no longer the same.”
- Line 23: “I no longer love her, that’s certain, but how I loved her.”
- Lines 27-28: “I no longer love her, that’s certain, but maybe I love her. / Love is so short, forgetting is so long.”
- Lines 29-30: “Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms / my soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.”
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Paradox
Where paradox appears in the poem:- Line 27: “I no longer love her, that’s certain, but maybe I love her.”
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Personification
Where personification appears in the poem:- Line 3: “the stars are blue and shiver in the distance."”
- Line 4: “The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.”
- Line 18: “My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.”
- Line 19: “My sight tries to find her”
- Line 20: “My heart looks for her”
- Line 24: “My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing.”
- Line 30: “my soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.”
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Parallelism
Where parallelism appears in the poem:- Line 6: “I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.”
- Line 9: “She loved me, sometimes I loved her too.”
- Lines 12-13: “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.”
- Line 16: “The night is starry and she is not with me.”
- Line 19: “My sight tries to find her”
- Line 20: “My heart looks for her, and she is not with me.”
- Line 23: “I no longer love her, that’s certain, but how I loved her.”
- Line 24: “My voice tried to find the wind”
- Line 26: “Her voice, her bright body. Her infinite eyes.”
- Line 27: “I no longer love her, that’s certain, but maybe I love her.”
- Line 28: “Love is so short, forgetting is so long.”
- Line 31: “this be the last pain that she makes me suffer”
- Line 32: “these the last verses that I write for her.”
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Repetition
Where repetition appears in the poem:- Line 1: “Tonight I can write the saddest lines.”
- Line 2: “The night is starry”
- Line 5: “Tonight I can write the saddest lines.”
- Lines 6-6: “I / her, and sometimes she / me too.”
- Line 6: “loved,” “loved”
- Line 9: “She loved me, sometimes I loved her too.”
- Line 11: “Tonight I can write the saddest lines.”
- Line 12: “To think,” “To feel”
- Line 13: “To hear,” “immense,” “immense”
- Line 16: “The night is starry”
- Line 17: “In the distance,” “In the distance”
- Line 18: “My soul,” “ is not satisfied that it has lost her.”
- Line 19: “My sight”
- Line 20: “My heart”
- Line 21: “same,” “same”
- Line 22: “same”
- Line 23: “I no longer love her, that’s certain, but how I loved her.”
- Line 25: “Another’s,” “another’s”
- Line 26: “Her,” “her,” “Her”
- Line 27: “I no longer love her, that’s certain, but maybe I love her.”
- Line 30: “my soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.”
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Simile
Where simile appears in the poem:- Line 14: “And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture.”
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“Tonight I can write the saddest lines” Vocabulary
Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.
- Dew
- Pasture
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(Location in poem: Line 14: “dew”)
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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “Tonight I can write the saddest lines”
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Form
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Meter
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Rhyme Scheme
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“Tonight I can write the saddest lines” Speaker
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“Tonight I can write the saddest lines” Setting
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Literary and Historical Context of “Tonight I can write the saddest lines”
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More “Tonight I can write the saddest lines” Resources
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External Resources
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Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair — The full collection translated by W.S. Merwin.
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Puedo Escribir Los Versos Mas Tristes — Check out the poem in its original Spanish!
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Neruda's Biography — Learn more about Neruda's life and work via the Poetry Foundation.
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The Poem Out Loud — Listen to a reading of the poem.
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"Romance and Revolution" — Watch a TED-ed presentation about Neruda, deemed here a "romantic and a revolutionary."
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