My love, if I die and you don't ---,
My love, if you die and I don't ---,
Let's not give grief an even greater field.
No expanse is greater than where we live.
Dust in the wheat, sand in the deserts,
Time, wandering water, the vague wind
swept us on like sailing seeds.
We might not have found one another in time.
This meadow where we find ourselves,
O little infinity! we give it back.
But Love, this love has not ended:
just as it never had a birth, it has
no death: it is like a long river,
only changing lands, and changing lips.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
by Pablo Neruda
translated by Stephen Tapscott