Body of a Woman
Body of a Woman - context Summary
Published in 1924 Collection
Written early in Pablo Neruda’s career and published in 1924 in Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair, "Body of a Woman" helped establish his reputation as a love poet. The poem channels youthful, passionate desire through visceral, earthly images: the speaker’s peasant body, the beloved’s skin, and metaphors of digging and rivers. It frames sexual union as both creative and combative—an attempt to survive loneliness while asserting a forceful, sometimes vengeful masculinity. Its candid eroticism and natural imagery mark the collection’s tone and announce Neruda’s intimate, physical lyric voice.
Read Complete AnalysesBody of a woman, white hills, white thighs, you look like a world, lying in surrender. My rough peasant's body digs in you and makes the son leap from the depth of the earth. I was lone like a tunnel. The birds fled from me, and nigh swamped me with its crushing invasion. To survive myself I forged you like a weapon, like an arrow in my bow, a stone in my sling. But the hour of vengeance falls, and I love you. Body of skin, of moss, of eager and firm milk. Oh the goblets of the breast! Oh the eyes of absence! Oh the roses of the pubis! Oh your voice, slow and sad! Body of my woman, I will persist in your grace. My thirst, my boundless desire, my shifting road! Dark river-beds where the eternal thirst flows and weariness follows, and the infinite ache.
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