lovelyheidelberg

Lovely Heidelberg

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A LAS FLORES DE HEIDELBERG

Go to my country, go foreign flowers!
    Planted by the traveller on his way,
    And there beneath that sky of blue
    That over my beloved towers,
    Speak for this traveller to say
    What faith in his homeland he breathes to you.

Go and say... say that when the dawn
    First drew your calyx open there
    Beside the River Neckar chill,
    you saw him standing by you, very still,
    Reflecting on the primrose flush you wear.

Say that when the morning light
    Her toll of perfume from you wrung,
    While playfully she whispered, "How I love you!"
    He too murmured here above you
    Tender love songs in his native tongue.

That when the rising sun the height
    Of Koenigstuhl in the early morn first spies;
    Is pouring life in the valley, wood, and grove,
    He greets the sun as it begins to rise,
    Which in his native land is blazing straight above.

And tell them of that day he staid
    And plucked you from the border of the path,
    Amid the ruins of the feudal castle,
    By the River Neckar, and in the silvan shade.
    Tell them what he told you
    As tenderly as he took
    Your plants leaves and pressed them in a book,
    Where now its well worn pages close enfold you.

Carry, carry, flowers of Rhine,
    Love to every love of mine,
    Peace to my country and her fertile land,
    Virtue to her women, courage to her men,
    Salute those darling once again,
    Who formed the sacred circle of our home.

And when you reach the shore,
    Each kiss I press upon you now,
    Deposit on the pinions of the wind,
    And those I love and honor above and adore
    Will feel my kisses carried their brow.

Ah, flowers, you may fare through,
    Conserving still, perhaps, your native hue;
    Yet, far from fatherland, heroic loam
    To which you owe your life,
    The perfume will be gone from you;
    For aroma is your soul; it cannot roam
    Beyond the skies which saw it born, nor e'er forget

-- Dr. Jos� Rizal

Schloss (Castle) Heidelberg

Entrance to the Alte Brucke (Old Bridge)

Heidelberg Altstadt (Old City)