'Don’t Go Far Off, Not Even for a Day' is a lover’s plea to his beloved to stay by his side.
A repeated imperative, or command, opens the poem: “Don’t go far off, not even for a day / Don’t go far off, not even for a day."
The direct, simple language and repetition emphasize the speaker's urgency and perhaps suggests his fear that his lover is not listening. We often repeat our point when we feel that our audience does not hear or does not understand.
Conversational Language
The persona writes as though he were speaking, using contractions, as in “don’t”, and spontaneously expressing the thought, “- because / - Because I don’t know how to say it”. This dramatic quality puts us in the presence of the speaker and his lover. We feel as though he is communicating straight from his heart, unfiltered by thought and unrestrained by artifice.
He finds a way to “say it” by likening waiting for his lover to waiting for a train in a station that has closed for the night. If you have ever sat in a station in the middle of the night, having missed the last train, in a strange place, with no other means of transport, and no place to stay, you will understand the power of this image. It conveys the speaker’s imagined abandonment and consequential loneliness and powerlessness.
"Don't Leave Me, Not Even for an Hour"
The second stanza opens with another imperative, “Don’t leave me”. This time, “not even for a day” has decreased to “not even for an hour”, a shift reflecting the speaker’s growing intensity. He describes his “anguish” as having liquid form – “little drops” that will “all run together”. Are they tears? Drops of blood? Neruda’s images travel on the border between the concrete and the abstract, engaging the reader’s imagination as part of the poetic process. Whatever our interpretation, this is another effective image – we’ve experienced the sudden shift from watery eyes to uncontrollable sobbing; we know the difference between a trickling brook and a flood; we’ve seen light rain break out into a thunderstorm.
In the line following, the speaker says that his lover’s departure will cause “the smoke that roams looking for a home” to “choke” his “lost heart”. The assonance, in the repeated long ‘o’ sounds, is striking here. It slows the pace and draws our attention to this line. The smoke is symbolic of pain, an imagined physical manifestation of the emotional. The lover’s departure will mean physical agony for him, conveyed through the violent verb, “choking”.
"Will You Leave Me Here, Dying?"
In the third stanza, the speaker’s emotion reaches a climax, as he urges his lover not to leave; not even “for a second”. If she departs, he will be thrown into total confusion, wandering around the earth, seeking her return, “mazily” - as though lost in a maze. The speaker concludes with a simple and powerful question, “Will you leave me here, dying?” Here, he makes a direct reference to what he has implied previously, appealing to his lover’s compassion – the loss of her will mean his death.
Source
Neruda, Pablo, 'Don't Go Far Off, Not Even for a Day', http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/pablo_neruda/poems/15713
Jasmine Crittenden - Jasmine Crittenden (B.A.)(Hons.)(First Class) is a writer and editor specialising in music, literature and travel.
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