To the Fatherland (A la Patria)

Hail! (Girls: 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!/ Filipinas beloved,/

Venus/ beauty-enshrouded,/ peerless,/ beloved land!

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

Regions of fruits/ delicious and of 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 gilt 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 thou languish,/

That which/ to thee is most precious-Freedom, /thou hast it not!/

Ah,/ to relieve thee,/ my country,/ in thy distress,/ in thy suffering,(.)

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

To the last drop,/ and oblivion find,/ and 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,/

Bondmaid/ 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?/

Aid what avail /thee the flowers covering thy smiling meadows,/

What the birds' 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 irons,/ fetters of hardness unequalled,/

Drawing enjoyment and pleasure/ from thy anguish and woe?/

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

That it brings forth fruit/ delicious,/ manifold,/ bountiful?/

If all thy generous heavens smile down upon and shelter/

Is claimed as his by the Spaniard,/ who stepping boldly forward,/

Insolent in his vileness,/ loudly proclaims his right?/

But to an end comes all silence,/ end must all servile patience,/

Now,/ that the toxin resounding/ calls us to fight for thee,/

And without fear,/ without mercy,/ openly,/ crush the vile serpent/

That with its venom has poisoned thy embittered existence:/

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

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

In the defence 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 by enchantment,/

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

Fighting with ardor that only death will defeat and vanquish,/

And even 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 of the desperate charges,/

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

And ye women,/ 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 a 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 life-blood flows till it seems like an ocean?/

Is it not spilt in defending thee and thy sacred homes?/

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

Or even torture, /with savage fury inflicted on us,

For at the sacred altar that in his heart each patriot/

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

Fealty to our cause,/ and our honor pledged./

And if we forth from the fight 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.

But 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 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 that 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 amain,/ our 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!/

DIMAS-ILAW. Sta. Cruz, Laguna, October 8, 1897