This poem considers the image of "fruited boughs. .
Rene De Costa has compared this poem's subject and function to the author's "Letter on the Road" and "Epithalamium" from Captain's Verses. This poem considers the image of "fruited boughs. . . pecked at by birds" before describing a "mad coupling of hope and force." The speaker relates the "happy hour of assault and the kiss / The hour of the spell that blazed like a lighthouse" before reflecting "How terrible and brief was my (*) desire of you!" This poem repeatedly describes a "pit of debris" and punctuates a series of images of drowning with the refrain "in you everything sank!" Opening "The memory of you emerges from the night around me," and featuring the repeated line "it is the hour of departure," for 10 points, name this mournful poem by Pablo Neruda that concludes a collection beginning with twenty love poems.
Rene De Costa has compared this poem's subject and function to the author's "Letter on the Road" and "Epithalamium" from Captain's Verses.
"A Song of Despair" [or "Una canciÃ³n desesperada;" prompt on Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair]