A TRIBUTE TO MY TOWN CHILD JESUS

When I remember the days Why have you come to earth,

that saw my early childhood Child God, in a poor manger?

spent on the green shores Does fortune find you a stranger?

of a murmurous lagoon; from the moment of your birth?

when I remember the coolness,

delicious and refreshing, Alas, of heavenly stock

that on my face I felt Now turned an earthly resident!

as I heard Favonius croon; Do you not wish to be president

But the shepherd of your flock?

when I behold the white lily

swell to the wind’s impulsion,

and that tempestuous element

meekly asleep on the sand;

when I inhale the dear

intoxicating essence

the flowers exude when dawn

is smiling on the land;

sadly, sadly I recall

your visage, precious childhood,

which an affectionate mother

made beautiful bright;

I recall a simple town,

My comfort, joy and cradle,

Beside a balmy lake.

The seat of my delight.

FIRST INSPIRATION ‘Live happily ever after!’

Why falls so rich a spray of fragrance from the
bowers
Of the balmy flowers upon this festive day?
And from that spring in the grove
Now turn to hear the first note
That from my lute I emote

To the impulse of my love.

Why from woods and vales

Do we hear sweet measures ringing

That seem to be the singing

Of a choir of nightingales?
GOODBYE TO LEONOR

Why in the grass below

And so its has arrived – the fatal instant,
Do birds star at wind’s noises,
The dismal injunction of my cruel fate;
Unleashing their honyed voices
So its has come at last –the moment, the date,
As they hop from bough to bough?
When I must separate myself from you.

Why should the spring that glows

Goodbye, Leonor, goodbye! I take my leave,
Its crystalline murmur be tuning
Leaving behind with you my lover’s heart!
To the zephyr’s mellow crooning
Goodbye, Leonor: from here I now depart.
As among the flowers it flows?
O Melancholy absence! Ah what pain!

Why seems to me more endearing,

More fair that on other days,

The dawn’s enchanting face

Among red clouds appearing?

The reason, dear mother, is

They feast your of bloom:

The rose with its perfume,

The birds with its harmonies.

And the spring that rings with laughter

Upon this joyful day

With its murmur seems to say:

KUNDIMAN (ENGLISH TRANSLATION)
Now mute indeed are tongue and heart:
Love shies away, joy stands apart.
Neglected by its leaders and defeated,
The country was subdued and its submitted.
But O the sun will shine again!
Itself the land shall disenchain;
And once more round the world with growing
praise
Shall sound the name of the tagalog race.
We shall pour out our blood in a great flood
To liberate the parent sod;
But till that day arrives for which we weep,
Love shall be mute, desire shall sleep.
TO MY FELLOW CHILDREN
Whenever people of a country truly love
The language which by heav'n they were taught
to us
That country also surely liberty pursue
As does the bird which soars to freer space
above.
For language is the final judge and referee
Upon the people in the land where it holds
sway;
In truth our human race resembles in this way
The other living beings born in liberty.
Whoever knows not how to love his native
tongue
is worse than any best or evil smelling fish.
To make our language richer ought to be our
wish
The same as any mother loves to feed her
young.
Tagalog and the Latin language are the same
And English and Castilian and the angels'
tongue;
And God, whose watchful care o'er all is flung,
Has given us His blessing in the speech we
calim,
Our mother tongue, like all the highest that we
know
Had alphabet and letters of its very own;
But these were lost -- by furious waves were
overthrown
Like bancas in the stormy sea, long years ago.
TO THE PHILIPPINE YOUTH Thou, who by sharp strife

Wakest thy mind to life ;

Hold high the brow serene, And the memory bright

O youth, where now you stand; Of thy genius' light

Let the bright sheen Of your grace be seen, Makest immortal in its strength ;

Fair hope of my fatherland!

And thou, in accents clear

Come now, thou genius grand, Of Phoebus, to Apelles dear;

And bring down inspiration; Or by the brush's magic art

With thy mighty hand, Takest from nature's store a part,

Swifter than the wind's violation, To fig it on the simple canvas' length ;

Raise the eager mind to higher station.

Go forth, and then the sacred fire

Come down with pleasing light Of thy genius to the laurel may aspire;

Of art and science to the fight, To spread around the fame,

O youth, and there untie And in victory acclaim,

The chains that heavy lie, Through wider spheres the human name.

Your spirit free to blight.

See how in flaming zone Day, O happy day,

Amid the shadows thrown, Fair Filipinas, for thy land!

The Spaniard'a holy hand So bless the Power to-day

A crown's resplendent band That places in thy way

Proffers to this Indian land. This favor and this fortune grand!

Thou, who now wouldst rise THE SONG OF MARÍA CLARA

On wings of rich emprise,

Seeking from Olympian skies Sweet the hours in the native country,

Songs of sweetest strain, where friendly shines the sun above!

Softer than ambrosial rain; Life is the breeze that sweeps the meadows;

Thou, whose voice divine tranquil is death; most tender, love.

Rivals Philomel's refrain And with varied line

Through the night benign Warm kisses on the lips are playing

Frees mortality from pain; as we awake to mother's face:

the arms are seeking to embrace her,

the eyes are smiling as they gaze. TO THE FLOWERS OF HEIDELBERG

How sweet to die for the native country, Go to my country, go,O foreign flowers,

where friendly shines the sun above! sown by the traveler along the road,

Death is the breeze for him who has and under that blue heaven

no country, no mother, and no love! that watches over my loved ones,

recount the devotion

the pilgrim nurses for his native sod!

Go and say

say that when dawn

opened your chalices for the first time beside

the icy Neckar,

you saw him silent beside you,

thinking of her constant vernal clime.

Say that when dawn

which steals your aroma

was whispering playful love songs to your young

sweet petals, he, too, murmured canticles of
love in his native tongue;

that in the morning when the sun first traces

the topmost peak of Koenigssthul in gold and
with a mild warmth raises to life again the
valley, the glade, the forest, he hails that sun,
still in its dawning, that in his country in full
zenith blazes. And tell of that day when he
collected you along the way among the ruins of
a feudal castle, on the banks of the Neckar, or
in a forest nook.

Recount the words he said as, with great care,

between the pages of a worn-out book

he pressed the flexible petals that he took.

Carry, carry, O flowers,

my love to my loved ones,

peace to my country and its fecund loam,

faith to its men and virtue to its women,

health to the gracious beings that dwell within TO THE VIRGIN MARY
the sacred paternal home.

Mary, sweet peace and dearest consolation

When you reach that shore,
Of suffering mortal: you are fount whence
deposit the kiss I gave you springs

on the wings of the wind above The current of solicitude that brings

that with the wind it may rove Unto our soil unceasing fecundation.

and I may kiss all that I worship, honour and

love!
From your abode, enthroned on heaven’s
height,

But O you will arrive there, flowers, In mercy deign to hear my cry of woe

and you will keep perhaps your vivid hues; And to the radiance of your mantle draw

but far from your native heroic earth to which My voice that rises with so swift a flight.
you owe your life and worth,

your fragrances you will lose!

You are my mother, Mary, and shall be
For fragrance is a spirit that never can forsake
and never forgets the sky that saw its birth. My life, my stronghold, my defense most
through;

And you shall be my guide on this wild sea.

If vice pursues me madly on the morrow,

If death harasses me with agony:

Come to my aid and dissipate my sorrow!

MY RETREAT
Beside a spacious beach of fine and delicate
sand and at the foot of a mountain greener
than a leaf, I planted my humble hut beneath a
pleasant orchard, seeking in the still serenity of
the woods repose to my intellect and silence to
my grief. Its roof is fragile nipa; its floor is
brittle bamboo; its beams and posts are rough
as rough-hewn wood can be; of no worth, it is
certain, is my rustic cabin; but on the lap of the
eternal mount it slumbers and night and day is
lulled by the crooning of the sea. The
overflowing brook, that from the shadowy
jungle descends between huge bolders, washes
it with its spray, donating a current of water
through makeshift bamboo pipes that in the
silent night is melody and music and crystalline
nectar in the noon heat of the day. If the sky is
serene, meekly flows the spring, strumming on
its invisible zither unceasingly; but come the
time of the rains, and an impetuous torrent
spills over rocks and chasms—hoarse, foaming
and aboil— to hurl itself with a frenzied roaring
toward the sea. The barking of the dog, the
twittering of the birds, the hoarse voice of the
kalaw are all that I hear; there is no boastful
man, no nuisance of a neighbor to impose
himself on my mind or to disturb my passage;
only the forests and the sea do I have near.
The sea, the sea is everything! Its sovereign
mass brings to me atoms of a myriad faraway
lands; its bright smile animates me in the
limpid mornings; and when at the end of day
my faith has proven futile, my heart echoes the
sound of its sorrow on the sands. At night it is
a mystery! … Its diaphanous element is
carpeted with thousands and thousands of
lights that climb; the wandering breeze is cool,
the firmament is brilliant, the waves narrate
with many a sigh to the mild wind histories that
were lost in the dark night of time.
‘Tis said they tell of the first morning on the
earth, of the first kiss with which the sun
inflamed her breast, when multitudes of beings
materialized from nothing to populate the
abyss and the overhanging summits and all the
places where that quickening kiss was pressed.
But when the winds rage in the darkness of the
night and the unquiet waves commence their
agony, across the air move cries that terrify the
spirit, a chorus of voices praying, a lamentation
that seems to come from those who, long ago,
drowned in the sea. Then do the mountain
ranges on high reverberate; the trees stir far
and wide, by a fit of trembling seized; the cattle
moan; the dark depths of the forest resound;
their spirits say that they are on their way to the
plain, summoned by the dead to a mortuary
feast. The wild night hisses, hisses, confused
and terrifying; one sees the sea afire with
flames of green and blue; but calm is re-
established with the approach of dawning and
forthwith an intrepid little fishing vessel begins
to navigate the weary waves anew. So pass
the days of my life in my obscure retreat; cast
out of the world where once I dwelt: such is my
rare good fortune; and Providence be praised
for my condition: a disregarded pebble that
craves nothing but moss to hide from all the
treasure that in myself I bear. I live with the
remembrance of those that I have loved and
hear their names still spoken, who haunt my
memory; some already are dead, others have
long forgotten— but what does it matter? I live
remembering the past and no one can ever
take the past away from me. It is my faithful
friend that never turns against me, that cheers
my spirit when my spirit’s a lonesome wraith,
that in my sleepless nights keeps watch with me
and prays with me, and shares with me my
exile and my cabin, and, when all doubt, alone
infuses me with faith.
Faith do I have, and I believe the day will shine
when the Idea shall defeat brute force as well;
and after the struggle and the lingering agony a
voice more eloquent and happier than my own
will then know how to utter victory’s canticle.
I see the heavens shining, as flawless and
refulgent as in the days that saw my first
illusions start; I feel the same breeze kissing my
autumnal brow, the same that once enkindled
my fervent enthusiasm and turned the blood
ebullient within my youthful heart. Across the
fields and rivers of my native town perhaps has
traveled the breeze that now I breathe by
chance; perhaps it will give back to me what
once I gave it: the sighs and kisses of a person
idolized and the sweet secrets of a virginal
romance. On seeing the same moon, as silvery
as before, I feel within me the ancient
melancholy revive; a thousand memories of
love and vows awaken: a patio, an azotea, a
beach, a leafy bower; silences and sighs, and
blushes of delight … A butterfly athirst for
radiances and colors, dreaming of other skies
and of a larger strife, I left, scarcely a youth, my
land and my affections, and vagrant
everywhere, with no qualms, with no terrors,
squandered in foreign lands the April of my life.
And afterwards, when I desired, a weary
swallow, to go back to the nest of those for
whom I care, suddenly fiercely roared a violent
hurricane and I found my wings broken, my
dwelling place demolished, faith now sold to
others, and ruins everywhere. Hurled upon a
rock of the country I adore; the future ruined;
no home, no health to bring me cheer; you
come to me anew, dreams of rose and gold, of
my entire existence the solitary treasure,
convictions of a youth that was healthy and
sincere.

No more are you, like once, full of fire and life,

offering a thousand crowns to immortality;
somewhat serious I find you; and yet your face
beloved, if now no longer as merry, if now no
longer as vivid, now bear the superscription of
fidelity. You offer me, O illusions, the cup of
consolation; you come to reawaken the years
of youthful mirth; hurricane, I thank you; winds
of heaven, I thank you that in good hour
suspended by uncertain flight to bring me
down to the bosom of my native earth. Beside
a spacious beach of fine and delicate sand and
at the foot of a mountain greener than a leaf, I
found in my land a refuge under a pleasant
orchard, and in its shadowy forests, serene
tranquility, repose to my intellect and silence to
my grief.