Gabriela Mistral

Love Unspoken

Love Unspoken - meaning Summary

Love Restrained by Silence

The poem depicts a speaker who cannot translate deep love into confident speech. She contrasts the certainty of declared hatred with the elusive, overwhelmed nature of her affection, which becomes inarticulate when felt too intensely. Others expect loud expression, but her love wells up silently, appearing absent despite being abundant. The silence causes her inner suffering, presented as more painful than death, because it distorts how her love is perceived.

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If I hated you, I'd give my hatred to you in words, round and sure, but I love you, and my love finds all speech unreliable, obscure. You'd like to hear it shouted out, but coming from so deep, its flood of fire fails and falters before it reaches my breast, my throat. A millpond full to overflowing, I seem to you spring gone dry, and suffer from my wretched silence worse than if I had to die.

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