A Las Flores de Heidelberg

"A Las Flores de Heidelberg"
(To the flowers of Heidelberg)
Jose Rizal
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 mu 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,

Saw 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 tongue he learned at birth.

That when the sun of Keenigsthul's height
Pours out its golden flood,
And with its slowly warming light
Gives life to vale and grove and wood,
He greets that sun, here only uprising,
Which in his native land is its zenith blazing.

And tell there of that day he stood,
Near to a ruin'd castle gray
By Neckar's banks, or shad wood,
And pluck'd you from beside the way
Tell, too, the tale you addressed,
And how with tender care,
Your bending leaves he press'd
Twixt pages of some volume rare.

Bear then, O flowers, love's message bear;
My love to all the lov'd ones there,
Peace to my country - fruitful land -
Faith whereon its sons may stand,
And virtue for its daughters' 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
All 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 unflod
Still here your fragrance will expand;
Your soul that never quits the earth
Whose light smiled on you at your birth.