Neruda's poem is one of love and romance, incredulity
playing in the author's tone as he praises his love for seeing beyond his
faults:
"How
you must have suffered getting accustomed to:me,
my savage, solitary soul, my
name that sends them all
running."
Even as he
continues in his expression of love for the woman with various lines, it becomes clear
that his own disdain for himself taints this love. "You are like nobody since I love
you" weighs heavily with a double entendre--it can be read to mean that no one is as
beloved as she, and therefore she is one of a kind; or it can be read to mean that she
is nobody because of his love in specific. In other words, his love
for her makes her unexceptional. This theme continues when he states, "I love you, and
my happiness bites the plum of your mouth." Here it becomes evident that he possibly
sees his joy at his love for her as possessive and unobliging--he takes from
her naturally and perhaps a bit viciously, as one might bite into a
plum.
However, the tone lightens nearer to the end, and it
becomes clear that all the comparisons he makes--an allegory with the woman as a lush,
fertile, sweet fruit which he enjoys as Nature would have him--are only to indicate what
he wishes to provide for her in turn. "I want/to do with you what spring does with the
cherry trees" conveys his desire to be part of what makes her flourish, to watch her
blossom and bloom under his touch despite his own opinion of his
worth.
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