Who is Marisombra from Pablo Neruda: Selected Poems and what is their importance?

Marisombra is 'Mary Shadow.' She is in the image of a student in the city. She wears a gray beret, has very gentle eyes, and has an ever-present honeysuckle fragrance. She represents Neruda's student days and his passionate city life. The tone that Neruda uses is correspondence with this character is slightly darker and slightly less naïve. When he is coloring her into his poems, it indicates that he is slightly older, slightly more aged and hashing through more experienced events of his young life. A good example of this is found in the poem Every Day You Play (pg. 25), where he speaks of a woman who is a "savage, solitary soul," and he says of her, "Now, now too, little one, you bring me honeysuckle, and even your breasts smell of it."