TO MY MUSE

Invoked no longer is the Muse,

They lyre is out of date;

The poets it no longer us,

And youth its inspiration now imbues

With other form and state.

If today our fancies aught

Of verse  would still require,

Helicon’s hill remains unsought;

And without heed we but inquire,

Why the coffee is not brought.

In the place of thought sincere

That our hearts may feel,

We must seize  a pen of steal,

And With verse and line severe

Fling abroad a jest and jet.

Muse, that in the past inspired me,

And with songs of the love hast fired me;

Go thou now to dull repose,

For today in sordid prose

I must earn the gold that hired me.

Now must I ponder deep,

Mediate, and struggle on;

E’en sometimes I must weep,

For he who love would keep

Great pain has undergone.

Fled are the days of ease,

The days of Love’s delight;

When flowers still would please

And give to suffering souls surcease

From pain and sorrow’s blight.

One by one they have passed on,

All  I loved and moved among,

Dead or married-from me gone,

For all I place my heart upon

 By fate adverse are stung.

Go thou, too, O Muse, depart,

Other regions fairer find;

For my land but offers art

For the laurel, chains that bind,

For a temple, prisons blind.

But before thou leaved me, speak;

Tell me with thy voice sublime,

Thou couldst ever from me seek

 Song of sorrow for the weak,

Defiance to the tyrant’s crime.

Copy write by: DR. JOSE RIZAL

( The Leader and Patriot)