Explore "Homage to Balboa" by Pablo Neruda on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Discoverer, centuries later, the vast sea- my foam, lunar latitude, empire of the water- speaks to you through my mouth.
Your plenitude came before your death.
You raised fatigue to the sky, and from the trees' hard night toil led you to the sum of the seashore, the great ocean.
In your gaze the marriage of diffused light and the little heart of man was consummated, a chalice never raised before was filled, a seed of lightning bolts accompanied you, and a torrential thunder filled the earth.
Balboa, captain-how diminutive your hand on your visor-mysterious marionette of the discovering salt, bridegroom of the oceanic sweetness, child of the world's new uterus.
The obscure odor of the ravished marine majesty entered your eyes like galloping orange blossoms, an arrogant aurora fell into your blood until it filled your soul, possessed man!
When you returned to the taciturn lands, sleepwalker of the sea, green captain, the earth awaited your corpse, eager to embrace your bones.
Mortal bridegroom, betrayal was requited.
Not in vain, throughout history crime has trampled in, the falcon has devoured its nest, and the serpents have assembled, striking one another with tongues of gold.
You entered the frenzied twilight and the lost steps that you took, still drenched by the depths, dressed in splendor and wed by the greatest foam, brought you to the shores of another sea: death.