To My Fatherland

TO MY FATHERLAND (English Version of "A La Patria")

                                                                         by Dimas-Ilaw (Emilio Jacinto)

Hail! Oh my native country!  More than aught I adore thee

Whom with so many treasures lavish nature has blessed;

Eden where flowers more fragrant bloom than in other gardens, 

Where with more beautiful colors, rising, the dawn paints the heavens, 

And where the poet, enraptured, sees what he elsewhere but dreamt. 

Hail! Oh thou queen enchanting!  Filipinos beloved, 

Venus beauty enshrouded, peerless, beloved land! 

Region of light and color, poetry, fragrance, and gaiety, 

Regions of fruits delicious and or sweet harmonies,

gently lulled to sleep by the breezes and the surf of the sea. 

Pearl the most precious and dazzling of our Eastern Ocean, 

Paradise built by the splendors of our brilliant sun:

Eagerly do I greet thee, and adoration ardent. 

Offers my soul with the burning, fervent desire to see thee

Free from thy bitter sorrow, free from the Spaniard's yoke! 

Ah, in the midst of thy splendors, sadly in chains dost though languish, 

That which to thee is most precious-freedom, though has it not! 

Ah, to relieve thee, my country, in thy distress, in thy suffering, 

Pain would I give my life-blood, gushing forth from my bosom 

To the last drop, and oblivion find, eternal rest. 

What should be thine by Justice, rights unalienable 

Are naught but words vain and hollow, cruel mockery to thee; 

Justice is but a deception in thy sad situation, 

Bonmaid art thou, though worthy of a Queen's purple instead, 

Joy givest thou to thy tyrant, who gives thee gall in return. 

What does it help thee, my country, sad bowed by dire misfortune, 

That thou hast skies like the turquoise, clear and diaphanous, 

That of thy moon the silvery beams are of matchless beauty: 

What does it help thee, who, weeping, sighing in bitter bondage, 

Hast for four centuries been suffering - what is the good to thee? 

And what avail thee flowers covering thy smiling meadows, 

What the bird's carols that sweetly in your forests resound? 

Ah, the same breeze that their fragrance bears and their songs harmonious, 

Bears on its wings cries and sobbing, weeping and bitter complaints, 

That fill the soul with anguish and the mind with sad thoughts. 

What is the good of thy splendor, pearl of virginal beauty, 

What of the wealth oriental of thy alluring charms, 

If all thy grace and beauty tyrants have cruelly blighted, 

Bound with mortiferous iron, fetters or hardness unequaled, 

Drawing enjoyment and pleasures from thy anguish and woe? 

What is the good of thy fertile soil and its matchless exuberance, 

That it brings forth fruits delicious and manifold, bountiful? 

If all thy generous heavens smile down upon and shelter 

Is claimed as his by the Spaniards, who stepping boldly forward, 

Insolent in his vileness, loudly proclaims his right? 

But to end comes all silence and must all servile patience, 

Now, that the tocsin resounding call  us to light for thee, 

And without fear, without mercy, openly, crush the servile serpent 

That with its venom has poisoned  thy embittered existence; 

Fatherland, here we are, ready, anxious to die for thee!

All, the idolized mother, and the wife whom we worship, 

Even the babe whom his father loves like a piece of his soul, 

In the defense of thy cause we abandon them, leaving behind us, 

Happiness, love and hope: all we hold dear we give up, 

All our fondest dreams, our illusions all. 

And lo!  Throughout the country heroes spring up enchantment, 

Burning with love of their country, radiant with virtue's light, 

Fighting with ardor that only death can defeat and vanquish, 

And even in dying they will utter thy sacred name. 

Fatherland, wishing thee happiness, still with their dying breath. 

Numerous like stars in the heavens, thousands of noble heroes 

Lay on thy sacred altars willingly down their lives, 

And when ye hear of the combats and the desperate charges 

Fervent prayers to heaven send up, ye children ye aged, 

And ye woman, that victory may be with our hosts! 

Midst the most horrible tortures cruelty can imagine, 

Only because they have loved thee and desired thy good, 

Countless martyrs have suffered, yet in the midst of their torments 

Blessings for thee have risen from their pure souls, and even 

Those who were slain met death with  last wish for thee. 

What does it matter that hundreds, thousands of sons of thine perish, 

In the unequal struggle, in the tremendous strife, 

And that their precious lifeblood flows till it seems like an ocean? 

Is it not split in defending thee and thy sacred home? 

Little it matters if fighting bravely, they die in thy cause! 

Little it matters if exile is our fate, and the prison, 

Or even torture, with savage fury inflicted on us, 

For t the sacred altar that in his heart each patriot 

To thee has raised, have us all, one and all have we sworn 

Fealty to our cause, and our honor pledged. 

And it we forth from the flight come with the laurels of glory,

And our self-sacrificing labor is crowned with success, 

Future ages will honor heap upon honor and crown thee 

Queen of the realm of the free, pure and unblemished queen, 

And all the peoples on earth mute and admiring will stand. 

On the horizon slowly rises the dawn, most brilliant, 

Of a new day of freedom, love and prosperity, 

And of those who have fallen in the dark night of the struggle 

Never let perish the memory, and in their graves, cold and humble, 

Happy their slumber will be, happiness being thine. 

And if the crown of the victor should be the spoil of the Spaniard, 

and if the fickle fortune should turn its back on thee, 

Yet we shall always be brethren - be what it may the outcome, 

Liberty will always have  the champions while there are tyrants alive. 

And our faith will not perish - while there is life, there is hope! 

Silent forces are working while  a false calm is reigning 

Calm precedes the storm - soon will the hurricane rage, 

And  with more firmness, more prudence will our work we continue 

And start the struggle again, but with more ardor and strength, 

Till in the end we shall triumph, till dried your tears shall be. 

Fatherland, idolized, precious, as your sorrows are growing 

So our love grows again, your affection for thee, 

Do not lose hope or courage, for from the wound, the gaping, 

Always the blood will flow, while there is life in us, 

And we shall never forget thee in eternity's space. 

October 1897

Source:  http://forthephilippines.blogspot.com/2011/04/revolutionary-hero-emilio-jacinto-his.html