Poems of Dr.

Jose Rizal

1.) Sa Aking Mga Kabat

Kapagka ang baya'y sadyng umiibig
Sa kanyng salitng kaloob ng langit,
Sanglang kalayaan nasa ring masapit
Katulad ng ibong nasa himpapawid.

Pagka't ang salita'y isang kahatulan
Sa bayan, sa nayo't mga kaharin,
At ang isng tao'y katulad, kabagay
Ng alin mang likha noong kalayan.

Ang hindi magmahal sa kanyang salit
Mahigit sa hayop at malansng isd,
Kay ang marapat pagyamaning kus
Na tulad sa inng tunay na nagpal.

Ang wikang Tagalog tulad din sa Latin
Sa Ingls, Kastil at salitang anghel,
Sapagka't ang Poong maalam tumingn
Ang siyang naggawad, nagbigay sa atin.

Ang salita nati'y huwad din sa iba
Na may alfabeto at sariling letra,
Na kaya nawal'y dinatnan ng sigw
Ang lunday sa law nong dakong una.



Sa Aking Mga Kabata (To My Fellow Youth)
is Rizals poem connoting ones love to his native
tongue. It implies how powerful ones own
language to its own native. Moreover, it shows
how ones language holds a significance to ones
identity and that no one should be ashamed of it.

This poem is originally written in Tagalog by
an 8-year-old Rizal on 1869. It was during this time
of Rizals life that he had first encountered
different learning brought by his own mother (who
had been constantly teaching him) which had
further made him develop his own ideals even at
an early age.



2.) To The Philippine Youth (A La Juventud Filipina)
English version

Unfold, oh timid flower !

Lift up your radiant brow,
This day, Youth of my native strand !
Your abounding talents show
Resplendently and grand,
Fair hope of my Motherland !

Soar high, oh genius great,
And with noble thoughts fill their mind;
The honor's glorious seat,
May their virgin mind fly and find
More rapidly than the wind.



To the Filipino Youth (A La Juventud
Filipina) is a poem originally written in Spanish
which was presented on 1879 in Manila, when
Rizal was studying at University of Sto. Tomas. It
was written by Rizal when he was only eighteen
years old, and was dedicated to the Filipino Youth.
He expressed here his views that Filipinos are not
inferior to any race especially to the Spaniards,
and that they should hone their skills and talents,
for God, for the Philippines and for Spain.




Descend with the pleasing light
Of the arts and sciences to the plain,
Oh Youth, and break forthright
The links of the heavy chain
That your poetic genius enchain.

See that in the ardent zone,
The Spaniard, where shadows stand,
Doth offer a shining crown,
With wise and merciful hand
To the son of this Indian land.

You, who heavenward rise
On wings of your rich fantasy,
Seek in the Olympian skies
The tenderest poesy,
More sweet than divine honey;

You of heavenly harmony,
On a calm unperturbed night,
Philomel's match in melody,
That in varied symphony
Dissipate man's sorrow's blight;

You at th' impulse of your mind
The hard rock animate
And your mind with great pow'r consigned
Transformed into immortal state
The pure mem'ry of genius great;

And you, who with magic brush
On canvas plain capture
The varied charm of Phoebus,
Loved by the divine Apelles,
And the mantle of Nature;

Run ! For genius' sacred flame
Awaits the artist's crowning
Spreading far and wide the fame
Throughout the sphere proclaiming
With trumpet the mortal's name

Oh, joyful, joyful day,
The Almighty blessed be
Who, with loving eagerness
Sends you luck and happiness
The poem was presented in 1879 in Manila
at a literary contest held in the Manila Lyceum of
Art and Literature, a society of literary men and
artists, where he won the first prize, composed of
a feather-shaped silver pen and a diploma.


3.) "My Last Farewell"

Farewell, my adored Land, region of the sun caress'd,
Pearl of the Orient Sea, our Eden lost,
With gladness I give thee my Life, sad and repress'd;
And were it more brilliant, more fresh and at its best,
I would still give it to thee for thine welfare at most.

On the fields of battle, in the fury of fight,
Others give thee their lives without pain or hesitancy,
The place matters not: cypress, laurel, or lily;
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 b'gin 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 vigour to
attain,
Were to see thee, Gem of the sea of the Orient,
Thy 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 thee, that will soon part from
thee;
Hail! How sweet 'tis to fall that fullness thou may
acquire;
To die to give thee life, 'neath thy skies to expire,
And in thy mystic land to sleep through eternity!

If over my tomb some day, thou wouldst see blow,
A simple humble flow'r amidst thick grasses,
Bring it up to thy lips and kiss my soul so,
And under the cold tomb, I may feel on my brow,
Warmth of thy breath, a whiff of thy 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 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 vaporise

My Last Farewell (Mi ltimo Adis) is a
poem originally written in Spanish by Rizal on
the eve of his execution on 30 December 1896.
The piece was one of the last notes he wrote
before he was killed through firing squad;
another that he had written was found in his
shoe but because the text was illegible, its
contents remain a mystery.

Rizal did not ascribe a title to this poem.
Mariano Ponce, his friend and fellow
reformist, titled it Mi ltimo Pensamiento
("My Last Thought") in the copies he
distributed, but this did not catch on. Fr.
Mariano Dacanay, who received a copy of the
poem while a prisoner in Bilibid (jail),
published it in the first issue of La
Independencia on Sept. 25, 1898 with the title
"Ultimo Adios".

In the poem, Rizal begs all to never lose
hope and faith in the Almighty as he has
despite the odds. It is a very forceful word of
encouragement to a nation so lost among
themselves during that time of oppression by
the Spaniards. This poem impresses how we
should give importance of all the heroic deeds
done by him and other heroes that we
should love our country as they had fought for
it.
And with my clamour 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 who 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 thou may seest thine own
redemption.

And when the dark night wraps the cemet'ry
And only the dead to vigil there are left alone,
Disturb not their repose, disturb not the mystery:
If thou hear the sounds of cithern or psaltery,
It is I, dear Country, who, a song t'thee intone.

And when my grave by all is no more remembered,
With neither cross nor stone to mark its place,
Let it be ploughed by man, with spade let it be
scattered
And my ashes ere to nothingness are restored,
Let them turn to dust to cover thy earthly space.

Then it matters not that thou should forget me:
Thy atmosphere, thy skies, thy vales I'll sweep;
Vibrant and clear note to thy ears I shall be:
Aroma, light, hues, murmur, song, moanings deep,
Constantly repeating the essence of the faith I keep.

My idolised Country, for whom I most gravely pine,
Dear Philippines, to my last goodbye; oh, harken
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 doth
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.
4.)Kundiman

Tunay ngayong umid yaring dilat puso
Sintay umiilag, tuway lumalayo,
Bayan palibhasay lupig at sumuko
Sa kapabayaan ng nagturong puno.

Datapuwat muling sisikat ang araw,
Pilit maliligtas ang inaping bayan,
Magbabalik mandin at muling iiral
Ang ngalang Tagalog sa sandaigdigan.

Ibubuhos namin ang dugot babaha
Matubos nga lamang ang sa amang lupa
Habang di ninilang panahong tadhana,
Sintay tatahimik, iidlip ang nasa.

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 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.
















Jose Rizal wrote Kundiman in Tagalog in
September 12, 1891. A kundiman is actually a
traditional Filipino love song used by a young man
to serenade the woman of his love. The theme of
Rizals Kundiman is his intense love for his
Motherland. His words reflected his optimism that
Philippines would be freed from injustice and
bondage.

Rizals Kundiman is not the elegiac and
mournful type because its rhythm sounds the
threat, the reproach and the revindication of the
rights of the race.
5.) Song of Maria Clara

Sweet are the hours in one's own Native Land,
All there is friendly o'er which the sun shines
above;
Vivifying is the breeze that wafts over her fields;
Even death is gratifying and more tender is love.

Ardent kissed on a mother's lips are at play,
On her lap, upon the infant child's awakening,
The extended arms do seek her neck to entwine,
And the eyes at each other's glimpse are smiling.

It is sweet to die in one's own Native Land,
All there is friendly o'er which the sun shines
above;
And deathly is the breeze for one without
A country, without a mother and without love.

Song of Maria Clara is a poem, found in
Rizal's book Noli Me Tangere, sung by Maria Clara,
which accounts for the title. Maria Clara is the lead
lady of his first novel, Noli Me Tangere, which
could well be associated with the real love interest
of his life.

The poem reveals Rizals desire to die in his
beloved native land, the Philippines.



6.) My Retreat (Mi Retiro)

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 chasmshoarse, foaming and
aboil
to hurl itself with a frenzied roaring toward the sea.


My Retreat (Mi Retiro) was a
product of Rizals four-year exile in Dapitan
at the request of his mother who was eager
to know how he lived there.

It a sentimental, touching, and
exquisite poem describing his home and life
in lonely Dapitan. Here, he betrays no
resentment of his unjust exile for he
believed that the day would come when
over brutal force, idea would prevail.

The poem describes many of Rizals
years, in and out of Dapitan the
recounted memories of his loved ones, for
his love who had forsaken him, and a
recollection of how he had let his country
full of bright illusions spending the spring of
his life in a foreign country.

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 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,
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 a thirst 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.




















7.) To the Flowers of Heidelberg

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 the Flowers of Heidelberg was written
because of Rizals fascination of the beauty of
German spring and a feeling of nostalgia. He
found inspiration in all of its beauty of the
blooming flowers and the fragrance of the woods.
It was penned on April 24, 1886.

The poem exudes intense love of Rizals
native land, a love which has grown in intensity as
he travelled from country to country. Rizal asked
the flowers to imaginatively go to the Philippines
and convey love to his countries and to his loved
ones.

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.