TO THE FLOWERS OF HEIDELBERG

                  

“TO THE FLOWERS OF HEIDELBERG”

Dr. Jose Rizal (Philippine National Hero) wrote a fine Poem dedicated

to the  blooming flowers of Heidelberg, Germany

April 22,1886

Go to my native land, go, foreign flowers,

Sown by the traveler on his way,

And there, beneath its azure sky,

Where all my affections lie;

There from the weary pilgrim say,

What faith is his in that land of ours!

Go there and tell how when the dawn,

Her early light diffusing,

Your petals first flung open wide;

His steps beside chill Neckar drawn,

You see him silent by your side,

Upon its Spring perennial musing,

Say how when morning’s light,

All your fragrance stealing,

Whispers to you as in mirth,

Playful songs of Love’s delight,

He,  too, murmurs his love’s feeling

In the tonque he learned at birth.

That when the sun on Koenigstuhl’s height

Pours out its golden flood,

And with it’s slowly warming light

Gives life to value and grove and wood,

He greets that sun, here only upraising,

Which in his native land is at its zenith blazing.

And tell there of that day he stood,

Near to a ruin’d castle gray,

 By Neckar’s banks, or shady wood,

And pluck’d you from beside the way

Tell, too, the tale toyou addressed,

And how with tender care,

Your bending leaves he press’d

“ Twist pages of some volume rare.

Bear then, O flowers, love’s message bear;

My love to all the love’d ones there,

Peace to my country – fruitful land –

Faith whereon its sons may stand,

And virtue for it’s daughter’s care;

All those beloved creatures greet,

That still around home’s altar meet.

And when you come unto its shore,

This kiss I now on you bestow,

Fling where the winged breezes blow;

That borne on them it may hover o’er

And that I love, esteem, and adore.

But though, O flowers, you come unto that land,

And still perchance your colors hold;

So far from this heroic strand,

Whose soil first bade your life unfold

Still here your fragrance will expand;

Your soul that never quits the earth

Whose light smiled on you at your birth.