Preface

A plant I am, that scarcely grown,
Was torn from out its Eastern bed,
Where all around perfume is shed,
And life but as a dream is known;
The land that I can call my own,
By me forgotten ne’er to be,
Where trilling birds their song taught me,
And cascades with their ceaseless roar,
And all along the spreading shore
The murmurs of the sounding sea.

While yet in childhood’s happy day,
I learned upon its sun to smile,
And in my breast there seemed the while
Seething volcanic fires to play;
A bard I was, and my wish alway
To call upon the fleeting wind,
With all the force of verse and mind:
“Go forth, and spread around its fame,
From zone to zone with glad acclaim,
And earth to heaven together bind!”

From “Mi Piden Versos” (1882),
verses from Madrid for his mother.

The Philippines
A Century Hence

“In the Philippine Islands the American government has tried, and is trying, to carry out exactly what the greatest genius and most revered patriot ever known in the Philippines, José Rizal, steadfastly advocated.”

—From a public address at Fargo, N.D., on April 7th. 1903, by the President of the United States.

Noli Me Tangere Quarter-Centennial Series
Edited by Austin Craig

The Philippines
A Century Hence

By José Rizal

Manila: 1912
Philippine Education Company
34 Escolta

By Austin Craig

Registered in the Philippine Islands.