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The Queen

Pablo Neruda

🌧️ Rain 🌊 Ocean 💨 Wind 🕊️ Birds

• I have named you queen.
• There are taller than you, taller.
• There are purer than you, purer.
• There are lovelier than you, lovelier.

• But you are the queen.

• When you go through the streets¹
• No one recognizes you.
• No one sees your crystal crown, no one looks²
• At the carpet of red gold
• That you tread as you pass,

• The nonexistent carpet.

• And when you appear
• All the rivers sound³
• In my body, bells
• Shake the sky,⁴

• And a hymn fills the world.

• Only you and I,
• Only you and I, my love,
• Listen to it.⁵

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Footnotes

The poem was originally written in Spanish by Neruda. One other translation include some different similar lines.

1. When you walk through the streets ↩

2. … no one notices the carpet … ↩

3. All the rivers roar ↩

4. Shake the heavens ↩

5. Hear it ↩