If You Forget Me
If You Forget Me - context Summary
Published 1959 for Matilde Urrutia
From Neruda’s 1959 collection Cien sonetos de amor, written for Matilde Urrutia, this lyric addresses the fragile reciprocity of romantic devotion. The speaker says ordinary sensations—moonlight, ash, aromas—lead him to his beloved, then frames his commitment conditionally: should she wane or forget, he will withdraw accordingly; if she remains steadfast, his passion intensifies and persists. The poem balances threatened abandonment and absolute fidelity, portraying love as mutually sustaining yet contingent. It reads as a personal pledge shaped by Neruda’s passionate relationship with his muse, mixing tenderness with quiet resolve.
Read Complete AnalysesI want you to know one thing. You know how this is: if I look at the crystal moon, at the red branch of the slow autumn at my window, if I touch near the fire the impalpable ash or the wrinkled body of the log, everything carries me to you, as if everything that exists, aromas, light, metals, were little boats that sail toward those isles of yours that wait for me. Well, now, if little by little you stop loving me I shall stop loving you little by little. If suddenly you forget me do not look for me, for I shall already have forgotten you. If you think it long and mad, the wind of banners that passes through my life, and you decide to leave me at the shore of the heart where I have roots, remember that on that day, at that hour, I shall lift my arms and my roots will set off to seek another land. But if each day, each hour, you feel that you are destined for me with implacable sweetness, if each day a flower climbs up to your lips to seek me, ah my love, ah my own, in me all that fire is repeated, in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten, my love feeds on your love, beloved, and as long as you live it will be in your arms without leaving mine.
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