What Spain Was Like Poem by Pablo Neruda

What Spain Was Like

Rating: 2.8


Spain was a taut, dry drum-head
Daily beating a dull thud
Flatlands and eagle's nest
Silence lashed by the storm.
How much, to the point of weeping, in my soul
I love your hard soil, your poor bread,
Your poor people, how much in the deep place
Of my being there is still the lost flower
Of your wrinkled villages, motionless in time
And your metallic meadows
Stretched out in the moonlight through the ages,
Now devoured by a false god.

All your confinement, your animal isolation
While you are still conscious
Surrounded by the abstract stones of silence,
Your rough wine, your smooth wine
Your violent and dangerous vineyards.

Solar stone, pure among the regions
Of the world, Spain streaked
With blood and metal, blue and victorious
Proletarian Spain, made of petals and bullets
Unique, alive, asleep - resounding.

COMMENTS OF THE POEM
Sally Plumb Plumb 01 October 2010

A man who knew and loved his country.

5 3 Reply
Max Carter-Mazak 05 August 2018

He isn't even Spanish but yep

0 0
Dr Antony Theodore 19 June 2020

With blood and metal, blue and victorious Proletarian Spain, made of petals and bullets Unique, alive, asleep - resounding. very fine poem. tony

0 0 Reply
Hebert Logerie Sr. 10 January 2020

Pablo Neruba was a poet, a diplomat from Chile, who opposed the dictator, crazy Pinochet.

0 0 Reply
Dominic Windram 10 January 2020

Neruda employs stunning surreal imagery to describe the duelling natures of the Spanish Civil War.

1 0 Reply
Denis Mair 10 January 2020

Thanks for your concise, excellent interpretation.

0 0
Mahtab Bangalee 10 January 2020

Proletarian Spain, made of petals and bullets Unique, alive, asleep - resounding.../// wondering me

0 0 Reply
Susan Williams 17 November 2015

I just traveled Spain - he loves Spain like he loves women- -intimately and to the depth of the soul

25 1 Reply
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