Me Piden Versos (They Asked Me for Verses!)
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. 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.
Background
Jose Rizal has always been an acclaimed poet after his martyrdom. Zealous poets and writers were inspired by Rizal’s works in every generation. Freedom of expression in whatever artistic and literary genres reveal Filipino patriotism in the midst of rejection and persecution.
Jose Rizal’s poem below was written while he was a member of Circulo Hispano Filipino. Me Piden Versos (They Asked Me for Verses) reflected how sad it was for him to have the ability to steer emotions through his poems yet stifled and muted by the powerful and oppressive Spaniards.
