Ode to Sadness by Pablo Neruda

Have you felt alone and isolated far away from the sentiment of happiness? I am certain that most of us have. And this poem,  Ode to Sadness, talks about that repulsive sadness no one desires to feel. I chose this poem because I like how Pablo Neruda describes sadness as a horrific and repugnant feeling. Within the poem, he demands it to go away and warns that he will destroy it if it attempts to draw near him. In the same way, I liked this poem because it shows the constant fight people have against feeling sad, alone, and unfortunate.

This poem uses many metaphors, personifications, and visual imagery. As we all know sadness is an abstract feeling and it does not have any sort of life qualities. On the first two lines we can observe these literary devices:

“Sadness, scarab
with seven crippled feet,…”

The descriptions “scarab” and “seven crippled feet” are some personifications given to sadness throughout the poem. I think that these descriptions are used to demonstrate how fatal and ugly sadness could be in people's lives. Equally, they evoke images in our mind. Well, I think that this poem is a great way to demonstrate how we should despise sadness in real life and never let ourselves get defeated by it, just a poet full of inspiration and strong poetic spirit; just as Pablo Neruda did.