Written Report In Rizal

(JRR 003) Rizals Poems

They Ask Me for Verses

Rizals loneliness, something like the dejection of his soul, is profoundly expressed in the first two stanzas of this poem Me piden versos (They ask me for verses). His lyre had long ago become so mute and broken; his muse stammers and no longer smiles at him; his soul neither frolics nor feels. In the fith stanza, Rizal the poet-patriot shows his vatic gift.

I They bid me strike the lyre so long now mute and broken, but not a note can I waken nor will my muse inspire! She stammers coldly and babbles when tortured by my mind; she lies when she laughs and thrills as she lies in her lamentation, for in my sad isolation my soul nor frolics nor feels. II There was a time, 'tis true, but now that time has vanished when indulgent love or friendship called me a poet too. Now of that time there lingers hardly a memory, as from a celebration some mysterious refrain that haunts the ears will remain of the orchestra's actuation. III A scarce-grown plant I seem uprooted from the Orient, where perfume is the atmosphere and where life is a dream. O land that is never forgotten! And these have taught me to sing: the birds with their melody, the cataracts with their force and, on the swollen shores, the murmuring of the sea.

IV While in my childhood days I could smile upon her sunshine, I felt in my bosom, seething, a fierce volcano ablaze. A poet was I, for I wanted with my verses, with my breath, to say to the swift wind: "Fly and propagate her renown! Praise her from zone to zone, from the earth up to the sky!" V I left her! My native hearth, a tree despoiled and shriveled, no longer repeats the echo of my old songs of mirth. I sailed across the vast ocean, craving to change my fate, not noting, in my madness, that, instead of the weal I sought, the sea around me wrought the spectre of death and sadness. VI The dreams of younger hours, love, enthusiasm, desire, have been left there under the skies of that fair land of flowers. Oh, do not ask of my heart that languishes, songs of love! For, as without peace I tread this desert of no surprises, I feel that my soul agonizes and that my spirit is dead.

To the Flowers of Heidelberg

A Las Flores de Heidelburg (22 April 1886) was written in reminiscence inspired by the afternoon strolls of Rizal along the banks of the icy Neckar River in Heidelburg, Germany. It is a poem of the Motherland; it is the poem of Remembrance-two of the greatest loves of man on earth.

Go to my country, go, O foreign flowers, sown by the traveler along the road, and under that blue heaven 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 the sacred paternal home. When you reach that shore, deposit the kiss I gave you on the wings of the wind above that with the wind it may rove and I may kiss all that I worship, honor and love! But O you will arrive there, flowers, and you will keep perhaps your vivid hues; but far from your native heroic earth to which you owe your life and worth, your fragrances you will lose! For fragrance is a spirit that never can forsake and never forgets the sky that saw its birth.

To Ms. C. O. y R.
This poem was dedicated to Consuelo,Ortiga y Rey, the daughter of Don Pablo Ortiga y Rey, a former Mayor of Manila. Rizal and other Filipinos frequented the Madrid residence of the Ortigas. The hero probably fell in love with her this discordant and stark poem in which he speacks of another corpse that is buried in my stuffing. Although he called his poetry damned blood (malditos hijos) in this poem, To Miss C.O. y R. is one of the best poem of Rizal.

Why ask for those unintellectual verses that once, insane with grief, I sang aghast? Or are you maybe throwing in my face my rank ingratitude, my bitter past?

Down with my corpse into the grave shall go another corpse that's buried in my stuffing!

Why resurrect unhappy memories now when the heart awaits from love a sign, or call the night when day begins to smile, not knowing if another day will shine? You wish to learn the cause of this dejection delirium of despair that anguish wove? You wish to know the wherefore of such sorrows, and why, a young soul, I sing not of love? Oh, may you never know why! For the reason brings melancholy but may set you laughing.

Something impossible, ambition, madness, dreams of the soul, a passion and its throes Oh, drink the nectar that life has to offer and let the bitter dregs in peace repose! Again I feel the impenetrable shadows shrouding the soul with the thick veils of night: a mere bud only, not a lovely flower, because it's destitute of air and light Behold them: my poor verses, my damned brood and sorrow suckled each and every brat! Oh, they know well to what they owe their being, and maybe they themselves will tell you what.

Canto De Maria Clara

Song of Maria Clara, were verses taken from the Noli Me Tangere where Rizals sentiments about dying into ones own native land is most pronounced. The agony of losing a country, a mother and loved ones were also expressed in the lines. Sweet the hours in the native country, Where friendly shines the sun above! Life is the breeze that sweeps the meadows; Tranquil is death; most tender, love. Warm kisses on the lips are playing As we awake to mother's face: The arms are seeking to embrace her, The eyes are smiling as they gaze. How sweet to die for the native country, Where friendly shines the sun above! Death is the breeze for him who has No country, no mother, and no love!

================================================== Kundiman
Originally written in Tagalog, the poem is one of the only two poems that Rizal wrote in this vernacular. During Rizals trial the poem was cited as evidence against him. He, however, denied authorship of such. The poem tells of pouring of blood to liberated the parent sod, and the land itself shall disenchain, lines that were considered subversive by the Spanish authorities. Now mute indeed are tongue and heart: love shies away, joy stands apart. Neglected by its leaders and defeated, the country was subdued and it 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.

================================================== Veros de Isagani

The Verses of Isagani The non-adversarial attitude of the Rizal towards the Spaniards are manifested in the lines of this poem. All (Spaniards and Indios) must unite to achive progress. We are water, you are fire Or so you say, let it be so! Let us live in peace together, Never think the other foe, As firemen when the flames blow. United, rather, fire, water, The way tat men of science know, In the boilers of an age of progress Soon combining by their glow In a new creation, vapour, show How life and light can forward go!

Himno Al Trabajo
Hymn to Labor (1880). Rizal wrote this poem to commemorate Lipas elevation from a town to city. He stressed the role of children, men and woman in achieving countrys progress through the dignity of labor and industry.

CHORUS: For the Motherland in war, For the Motherland in peace, Will the Filipino keep watch, He will live until life will cease! MEN: Now the East is glowing with light, Go! To the field to till the land, For the labour of man sustains Fam'ly, home and Motherland. Hard the land may turn to be, Scorching the rays of the sun above... For the country, wife and children All will be easy to our love. (Chorus) WIVES: Go to work with spirits high, For the wife keeps home faithfully, Inculcates love in her children For virtue, knowledge and country. When the evening brings repose, On returning joy awaits you, And if fate is adverse, the wife,

Shall know the task to continue. (Chorus) MAIDENS: Hail! Hail! Praise to labour, Of the country wealth and vigor! For it brow serene's exalted, It's her blood, life, and ardor. If some youth would show his love Labor his faith will sustain : Only a man who struggles and works Will his offspring know to maintain. (Chorus) CHILDREN: Teach, us ye the laborious work To pursue your footsteps we wish, For tomorrow when country calls us We may be able your task to finish. And on seeing us the elders will say : "Look, they're worthy 'f their sires of yore!" Incense does not honor the dead As does a son with glory and valor.

A Mi Musa
To My Muse (1890) a poem written in Madrid while Rizal was in the process of completing the Fili. Frustrated and disillusioned over the lack of freedom of expression, he bids his muse to leave him. But as his inspirations departs, he asks her just the same, to return to bear with him his agony in defeat, and in victory, share with him the glory.

Invoked no longer is the Muse, The lyre is out of date; The poets it no longer use, And youth its inspiration now imbues With other form and state. If today our fancies aught Of verse would still require, Helicons hill remains unsought; And without heed we but inquire, Why the coffee is not brought. In the place of thought sincere That our hearts may feel, We must seize a pen of steel, And with verse and line severe Fling abroad a jest and jeer. Muse, that in the past inspired me, And with songs of love hast fired me; Go thou now to dull repose, For today in sordid prose I must earn the gold that hired me. Now must I ponder deep, Meditate, and struggle on; Een sometimes I must weep;

For he who love would keep Great pain has undergone. Fled are the days of ease, The days of Loves delight; When flowers still would please And give to suffering souls surcease From pain and sorrows blight. One by one they have passed on, All I loved and moved among; Dead or marriedfrom me gone, For all I place my heart upon By fate adverse are stung. Go thou, too, O Muse, depart, Other regions fairer find; For my land but offers art For the laurel, chains that bind, For a temple, prisons blind. But before thou leavest me, speak: Tell me with thy voice sublime, Thou couldst ever from me seek A song of sorrow for the weak, Defiance to the tyrants crime.

Mi Retiro
My Retreat (1895) is Rizals longest poem. It runs to 120 lines or 24 stanzas. Regarded as an autobiographical poem, he narrated his past experiences while in Europe, his involvement in the Calamba agrarian affair, and some incidents leading to his exile at Dapitan. Most of the stanzas were his reflections about his life as an exile.

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 roughhewn 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 chasmshoarse,

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,

8 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 spirits 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 victorys 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,

9 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.

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Canto del Viajero

Song of the Traveler was written shortly before he sailed for Cuba to serve as a surgeon for the Spanish soldiers fighting in the Cuba Revolution. Rizal felt deserted and isolated. He was now ready to seek refuge in the tranquility of death and to rest in peace.

Like to a leaf that is fallen and withered, Tossed by the tempest from pole unto pole ; hus roams the pilgrim abroad without purpose, Roams without love, without country or soul. Following anxiously treacherous fortune, Fortune which e 'en as he grasps at it flees ; Vain though the hopes that his yearning is seeking, Yet does the pilgrim embark on the seas ! Ever impelled by the invisible power, Destined to roam from the East to the West ; Oft he remembers the faces of loved ones, Dreams of the day when he, too, was at rest. Chance may assign him a tomb on the desert, Grant him a final asylum of peace ; Soon by the world and his country forgotten, God rest his soul when his wanderings cease !

Often the sorrowing pilgrim is envied, Circling the globe like a sea-gull above ; Little, ah, little they know what a void Saddens his soul by the absence of love. Home may the pilgrim return in the future, Back to his loved ones his footsteps he bends ; Naught wll he find but the snow and the ruins, Ashes of love and the tomb of his friends, Pilgrim, begone ! Nor return more hereafter, Stranger thou art in the land of thy birth ; Others may sing of their love while rejoicing, Thou once again must roam o'er the earth. Pilgrim, begone ! Nor return more hereafter, Dry are the tears that a while for thee ran ; Pilgrim, begone ! And forget thine affliction, Loud laughs the world at the sorrows of man.

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Mi Ultimo Adios
My Last Farewell Rizal wrote this poem in his cell at Fort Santiago few days before his execution. This poem was inserted in an alcohol lamp that was given as a gift to his sister Trinidad. Austin Coates identified the poems four objectives: a farewell, a last will and testament, an appeal to the Filipinos to remember the hero and as Rizals autobiography.

Farewell, my adored Land, region of the sun caressed, Pearl of the Orient Sea, our Eden lost, With gladness I give you my Life, sad and repressed; And were it more brilliant, more fresh and at its best, I would still give it to you for your welfare at most. On the fields of battle, in the fury of fight, Others give you their lives without pain or hesitancy, The place does not matter: cypress laurel, lily white, Scaffold, open field, conflict or martyrdom's site, It is the same if asked by home and Country. I die as I see tints on the sky begin to show And at last announce the day, after a gloomy night; If you need a hue to dye your matutinal glow, Pour my blood and at the right moment spread it so, And gild it with a reflection of your nascent light! My dreams, when scarcely a lad adolescent, My dreams when already a youth, full of

vigor to attain, Were to see you, gem of the sea of the Orient, Your dark eyes dry, smooth brow held to a high plane Without frown, without wrinkles and of shame without stain. My life's fancy, my ardent, passionate desire, Hail! Cries out the soul to you, that will soon part from thee; Hail! How sweet 'tis to fall that fullness you may acquire; To die to give you life, 'neat your skies to expire, And in your mystic land to sleep through eternity! If over my tomb some day, you would see blow, A simple humble flows amidst thick grasses, Bring it up to your lips and kiss my soul so, And under the cold tomb, I may feel on my brow, Warmth of your breath, a whiff of your tenderness. Let the moon with soft, gentle light me descry, Let the dawn send forth its fleeting, brilliant light, In murmurs grave allow the wind to

12 sigh, And should a bird descend on my cross and alight, Let the bird intone a song of peace o'er my site. Let the burning sun the raindrops vaporize And with my clamor behind return pure to the sky; Let a friend shed tears over my early demise; And on quiet afternoons when one prays for me on high, Pray too, oh, my Motherland, that in God may rest I. Pray thee for all the hapless that have died, For all those who unequalled torments have undergone; For our poor mothers who in bitterness have cried; For orphans, widows and captives to tortures were shied, And pray too that you may see you own redemption. And when the dark night wraps the cemetery And only the dead to vigil there are left alone, Don't disturb their repose, don't disturb the mystery: If you hear the sounds of cithern or psaltery, It is I, dear Country, who, a song to you intone. And when my grave by all is no more remembered, With neither cross nor stone to mark its place, Let it be plowed by man, with spade let it be scattered And my ashes ere to nothingness are restored, Let them turn to dust to cover your earthly space. Then it doesn't matter that you should forget me: Your atmosphere, your skies, your vales I'll sweep; Vibrant and clear note to your ears I shall be: Aroma, light, hues, murmur, song, moaning deep, Constantly repeating the essence of the faith I keep. My idolized Country, for whom I most gravely pine, Dear Philippines, to my last goodbye, oh, harkens There I leave all: my parents, loves of mine, I'll go where there are no slaves, tyrants or hangmen Where faith does not kill and where God alone does reign. Farewell, parents, brothers, beloved by me, Friends of my childhood, in the home distressed; Give thanks that now I rest from the wearisome day; Farewell, sweet stranger, my friend, who brightened my way; Farewell, to all I love. To die is to rest.