To my Native Land
by Trinidad Tarrosa-Subido
Beloved Land, let me explain to thee
Why thought of nearing death provokes a pain: 'Tis not that I again shall never see
These orient isles of kindly sun and rain;
Not that the visionary spirit must
Forego the wonders she had fondly schemed;
Not that the flesh must soon succumb to dust,
With Love's avowals only half redeemed.
O my beloved Land, whose air I breathe,
Whose bounty is my daily sustenance,
How sad to leave with nothing to bequeath,
Thy weal to serve, thy glory to enhance;
How shameful, finally, to dare to rest
My thankless dust upon thy noble breast!
POEM ANALYSIS
1ST STANZA:
People would always think that death is pain or going to death ones's suffers pain.
2ND STANZA:
All humans have endeavors while they love. Each have systematic life style to persuade. However, it won't take for a long for we will soon vest.
3RD STANZA:
As Humans are development to the nature they cannot live without it. However, nature is not enough they need to enhance it to gain wreath and glory in order to have a legacy if they passed away.
RHYME SCHEME
1ST STANZA: A-B-A-B
2ND STANZA: A-B-A-B
3RD STANZA: A-B-A-B-A-B
FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE
Personification: These orient Isles of kindly sun and pain.
Hyperbole: Not that the visionary spirit must, Forego the wonders she had fondly schemed.
IMAGERY
1ST STANZA: Sun and Rain
2ND STANZA: Dust
3RD STANZA: Dust
SYMBOLISM
The poem uses some symbolism to express the idea of the poet. She made use of nature or natural things to make the poem more realistic or how life should be on earth. How people relates to death , hoe to live meaningfully and to impart legacy, to gain wreath.
SUMMARY
The poem is all about a person, who wants to die because of the purpose taht they have in life, to be wreath and be glorified by others and to have a legacy taht would always made them remembered by the people.
BACKGROUND OF THE AUTHOR
Trinidad Tarrosa-Subido was born in Socorro oriental mindoro, where her father worked as a star . After her father's death, she and her mother returned to Manila in 1917. She graduated from Manila East High School, and in 1929, she took the civil service examination in order to work in the Bureau of Education, and passed it with a grade of 97 percent, the highest then on record. She enrolled as a working student at the University of the Philippines at Padre Faura (commonly known as UP Manila) in 1932 and met her husband Abelardo Subido. She became a member of the UP Writers Club and contributed her sonnets.
She got married in 1936 and graduated magna cum laude the following year. She then began to work at the Institute of National Language. In 1940, she published Tagalog Phonetics and Orthography, which she co-authored with Virginia Gamboa-Mendoza. In 1945, she and her husband published poems titled Two Voices, with an introduction by Salvador P. Lopez.
After the war, the Subidos put up a daily newspaper, The Manila Post, which closed in 1947 and made her a freelance writer. She then became editor of Kislap-Graphic and Philippine Home Economics Journal.
She retired in 1971, and in 1984, she was invited by the Women in Media Now to write the introduction to Filipina I, the first anthology consisting of works made exclusively by Filipino women. She was honored in 1991 by the Unyon ng Mga Manunulat sa Pilipinas (UMPIL).
She died in 1994.
In 2002, her family published a manuscript Tarrosa-Subido had been working on at the time of her death. Titled Private Edition: Sonnets and Other Poems (Milestone Publication), the retrospective volume contains 89 poems, a few of them revised and retitled versions of the originals.One of them is "To My Native Land"
