TO MY NATIVE LAND

TO MY NATIVE LAND

Trinidad Tarrosa Subido

Beloved Land, let me explain to thee

Why thought of nearingdeath 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 thanksfulness dust upon thy noble breast!

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.

Analysis:

The author is sad to die not because she is afraid of being no more, but because the earth has given her everything she needed but she regret that the she has nothing to give to make it better.

Rhyme Scheme: 

A B, A B, C D, C D, E F, E F, G H

Meter:

10 11

Imagery:

I can image that the author is really a good person because she is not just thinking about herself but she is also thinking for the good of our nature. 

Summary:

The summary of this poem is that the author is thankful to the world and she is also thinking what can she do to make the earth good.