A Las Flores De Heidelberg (To the flowers of Heidelberg).

Id a mi patria, id, extranjeras flores,
sembradas del viajero en el camino,
y bajo su azul cielo,
que guarda mis amores,
contad del peregrino
la fe que alienta por su patrio suelo!
id y decid ... decid que cuando el alba
vuestro cáliz abrió por vez primera
cabe el Neckar helado,
le visteis silencioso a vuestro lado
pensando en su constante primavera.
Decid que cuando el alba,
que roba vuestro aroma,
cantos de amor jugando os susurraba,
él tambien murmuraba
cantos de amor en su natal idioma; que cuando el sol la cumbre
del Koenigsthul en la mañana dora
y con su tibia lumbre
anima el valle, el bosque y la espesura,
saluda a ese sol aún en su aurora,
al que en su patria en el cenit fulgura !
y contad aquel día
cuando os cogía al borde del sendero,
entre ruinas del feudal castillo,
orilla al Neckar, o a la selva umbria.
Contad lo que os decía,
cuando, con gran ciudado
entre las páginas de un libro usado
vuestras flexibles hojas oprimía.

Llevad, llevad, oh flores !
amor a mis amores
paz a mi país y a su fecunda tierra,
fe a sus hombres, virtud a sus mujeres,
salud a dulces seres
que el paternal, sagrado hogar encierra ...

Cuando toqueis la playa,
el beso os imprimo
depositadlo en ala de la brisa,
por que con ella vaya
y bese cuanto adora, amo y estimo.

Mas ay llegáreis flores,
conservaréis quizas vuestras colores,
pero lejos del patrio, heroico suelo
a quien debéis la vida:
que aroma es alma, y no abandona el cielo,
cuya luz viera en su nacer, ni olvida.

José Rizal, 1886

Go to my country, go, O foreign flowers,
sown by the traveler along the road,
and under that blue heaven
that watches over my loved ones,
recount the devotion
the pilgrim nurses for his native sod!
Go and say say that when dawn
opened your chalices for the first time
beside the icy Neckar,
you saw him silent beside you,
thinking of her constant vernal clime.

Say that when dawn
which steals your aroma
was whispering playful love songs to your young
sweet petals, he, too, murmured
canticles of love in his native tongue;
that in the morning when the sun first traces
the topmost peak of Koenigssthul in gold
and with a mild warmth raises
to life again the valley, the glade, the forest,
he hails that sun, still in its dawning,
that in his country in full zenith blazes.

And tell of that day
when he collected you along the way
among the ruins of a feudal castle,
on the banks of the Neckar, or in a forest nook.
Recount the words he said
as, with great care,
between the pages of a worn-out book
he pressed the flexible petals that he took.

Carry, carry, O flowers,
my love to my loved ones,
peace to my country and its fecund loam,
faith to its men and virtue to its women,
health to the gracious beings
that dwell within the sacred paternal home.

When you reach that shore,
deposit the kiss I gave you
on the wings of the wind above
that with the wind it may rove
and I may kiss all that I worship, honor and love!

But O you will arrive there, flowers,
and you will keep perhaps your vivid hues;
but far from your native heroic earth
to which you owe your life and worth,
your fragrances you will lose!
For fragrance is a spirit that never can forsake
and never forgets the sky that saw its birth.

José Rizal, 1886