Rafael Zulueta y da Costa (born 1915) is a Filipino poet. He was a graduate of De La Salle (now University) where he specialized in business administration. He began writing poems in Spanish and later he also wrote in English. His most famous work is Like the Molave and Other Poems, which won the Commonwealth Literary Award for Poetry in 1940.
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Today's Song
Tomorrow? – It matters not
What it may hold for me.
And yesterday? – I have forgot –
It is enough to be.
(1933)
Could this be another poem about carpe diem or cease the day? Maybe yes. But definitely not. The speaker in the poem is somewhat carefree in his attitude about things that happened in the past and those things that awaits him the next day. Tomorrow? – It matters not/What it may hold for me./ And yesterday? – I have forgot—/”
Or could it be that maybe, the speaker, who denies all these, is carefree but somehow really worries about tomorrow and his past. And that he is actually tied down to his long-gone past and his near future: “It is enough to be.”
The poem is an epigram. An epigram is a short, witty saying and is usually satirical.
Also, the language used in the poem is conversational and is never like that of A.E. Litiatco.
Note: What’s with the (?) and the ( – )? Are these the speaker’s delaying tactics? Or is he still thinking before answering the question? “Tomorrow? – It matters not/What it may hold for me./ And yesterday? – I have forgot—/”
The Soldiers
I bring no flowers for the dead; my lips
Do not remember them. The weeping world
Makes holiday of death with flags unfurled:
Was not death victory for truth? Wax drips
In generous remembrance; tears eclipse
The run of blood; from pious censers twirled
With solemn dignity, behold: uncurled
The coils, the hate they call Apocalypse.
Defeated dead, here is a song-bouquet
I gathered from the slopes of silence. Take
This pray’r, full of the grace of earth, I lay
Before your fallen cross. They will forsake
Your shrine; when ended is grief-holiday
Pray’r will, with flags, be neatly tucked away.
(1936)
On surface reading, the poem depicts that there are dead patriots, but they are not at all properly honored.
The poem has 14 lines. The rhyme scheme for the octave is abbaabba and cdcdcc for the sestet. The poem must be a Petrarchan sonnet or the Italian sonnet. In the octave, the speaker is not in agreement with the act of giving the dead flowers because he believes that these recognition (or paghandum) is just temporary. The ritual becomes mechanical in the process. Hence, loses its essence. In the sestet, the speaker thus offers a song-bouquet, a somewhat euphemism for a poem well arranged with art. He sees this as a more sincere act of “paghandum.” So, anybody who reads the poem (or song-bouquet), immortalizes its essence.
Eroica
So now we are alone in this great waste
Of fragments of a lost and vanished world;
In this great vast where we, a million years
Ago, first heard the earth-song at cool of dawn;
First felt the brush of godly wings; looked up
And traced the pattern of eternal stars
Full of the grace of mystery; beheld
The dreaming, mist-enchanted wild of earth.
So long ago, we have forgotten how
To weep before the miracle of beauty;
Forgotten how the running of our blood
Was one with running water of all tides
Of all time.
You and I, so long ago.
There in the wind-swept sunrise, grass beneath
Our knees, we took the earth for all its glory
And dedicated all our dreams to earth.
We are become inebriate with the grape
Earth-scented with its twice two thousand years:
The taste of death is on our drunken lips.
(1940)
So now we are alone in this great waste/ Of fragments of a lost and vanished world;/
In this great vast where we, a million years/ Ago, first heard the earth-song at cool of dawn;/ <-- the speaker could be addressing somebody
First felt the brush of godly wings; looked up/ And traced the pattern of eternal stars/ Full of the grace of mystery; beheld/The dreaming, mist-enchanted wild of earth./ <-- a beautiful image of the night sky is painted here.
So long ago, we have forgotten how/ To weep before the miracle of beauty;/ Forgotten how the running of our blood/ Was one with running water of all tides/ Of all time.// <-- the speaker and the one he's addressing to must have sacrificed something for the good of the many.
You and I, so long ago./ There in the wind-swept sunrise, grass beneath/ Our knees, we took the earth for all its glory/ And dedicated all our dreams to earth./ <-- they must have dedicated their dreams to humanity (?)
We are become inebriate with the grape/ Earth-scented with its twice two thousand years:/ The taste of death is on our drunken lips./ <-- the speaker must be a hero who fought and died for a cause.
Today's Song
Tomorrow? – It matters not
What it may hold for me.
And yesterday? – I have forgot –
It is enough to be.
(1933)
Could this be another poem about carpe diem or cease the day? Maybe yes. But definitely not. The speaker in the poem is somewhat carefree in his attitude about things that happened in the past and those things that awaits him the next day. Tomorrow? – It matters not/What it may hold for me./ And yesterday? – I have forgot—/”
Or could it be that maybe, the speaker, who denies all these, is carefree but somehow really worries about tomorrow and his past. And that he is actually tied down to his long-gone past and his near future: “It is enough to be.”
The poem is an epigram. An epigram is a short, witty saying and is usually satirical.
Also, the language used in the poem is conversational and is never like that of A.E. Litiatco.
Note: What’s with the (?) and the ( – )? Are these the speaker’s delaying tactics? Or is he still thinking before answering the question? “Tomorrow? – It matters not/What it may hold for me./ And yesterday? – I have forgot—/”
The Soldiers
I bring no flowers for the dead; my lips
Do not remember them. The weeping world
Makes holiday of death with flags unfurled:
Was not death victory for truth? Wax drips
In generous remembrance; tears eclipse
The run of blood; from pious censers twirled
With solemn dignity, behold: uncurled
The coils, the hate they call Apocalypse.
Defeated dead, here is a song-bouquet
I gathered from the slopes of silence. Take
This pray’r, full of the grace of earth, I lay
Before your fallen cross. They will forsake
Your shrine; when ended is grief-holiday
Pray’r will, with flags, be neatly tucked away.
(1936)
On surface reading, the poem depicts that there are dead patriots, but they are not at all properly honored.
The poem has 14 lines. The rhyme scheme for the octave is abbaabba and cdcdcc for the sestet. The poem must be a Petrarchan sonnet or the Italian sonnet. In the octave, the speaker is not in agreement with the act of giving the dead flowers because he believes that these recognition (or paghandum) is just temporary. The ritual becomes mechanical in the process. Hence, loses its essence. In the sestet, the speaker thus offers a song-bouquet, a somewhat euphemism for a poem well arranged with art. He sees this as a more sincere act of “paghandum.” So, anybody who reads the poem (or song-bouquet), immortalizes its essence.
Eroica
So now we are alone in this great waste
Of fragments of a lost and vanished world;
In this great vast where we, a million years
Ago, first heard the earth-song at cool of dawn;
First felt the brush of godly wings; looked up
And traced the pattern of eternal stars
Full of the grace of mystery; beheld
The dreaming, mist-enchanted wild of earth.
So long ago, we have forgotten how
To weep before the miracle of beauty;
Forgotten how the running of our blood
Was one with running water of all tides
Of all time.
You and I, so long ago.
There in the wind-swept sunrise, grass beneath
Our knees, we took the earth for all its glory
And dedicated all our dreams to earth.
We are become inebriate with the grape
Earth-scented with its twice two thousand years:
The taste of death is on our drunken lips.
(1940)
So now we are alone in this great waste/ Of fragments of a lost and vanished world;/
In this great vast where we, a million years/ Ago, first heard the earth-song at cool of dawn;/ <-- the speaker could be addressing somebody
First felt the brush of godly wings; looked up/ And traced the pattern of eternal stars/ Full of the grace of mystery; beheld/The dreaming, mist-enchanted wild of earth./ <-- a beautiful image of the night sky is painted here.
So long ago, we have forgotten how/ To weep before the miracle of beauty;/ Forgotten how the running of our blood/ Was one with running water of all tides/ Of all time.// <-- the speaker and the one he's addressing to must have sacrificed something for the good of the many.
You and I, so long ago./ There in the wind-swept sunrise, grass beneath/ Our knees, we took the earth for all its glory/ And dedicated all our dreams to earth./ <-- they must have dedicated their dreams to humanity (?)
We are become inebriate with the grape/ Earth-scented with its twice two thousand years:/ The taste of death is on our drunken lips./ <-- the speaker must be a hero who fought and died for a cause.
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