TO THE NATIONAL HERO

To The National Hero

by Cecilio Apostol

trans. by Alfredo S. Veloso

Immortal hero! Legendary colossus!

Emerge from the ossuary's abyss

Where you sleep the slumber of glory.

Come: our love that your memory inflames,

calls you from the shadowy eternity

to crown with flowers your memory.

This is the date, the funeral day,

in which the bloody tyrant

made you suffer the last torment,

as if, in breaking the earthen amphora,

the essence that in the amphora is enclosed

would not impregnate the wind.

Midday, clarity

bewildering and triumphant,

chaste, brilliant nudity,

image of the truth!

Your intense transparence

all penumbra exiles.

Without the potency that your volcano

encloses, oh midday,

to the abyss would roll,

lifeless heavenly body, the earth.

Fulgent and ardent hour

during which the sun's bonfire

diffuses around the atmosphere

the breath from the crucible.

The whole earth feels

transfixed in flames;

around the fertile countryside

strong winds howl,

and trunks and branches

and affective elixir make.

Midday, exaltation

of the creative power

to your inspiring light

imagination burns.

How many select productions

of brilliant permanence,

that in art and in science

the human mind engendered,

carry the refulgent stamp

of your ardor and predominance!

In the uncertain hours,

while anxious people struggle

to reach the happy

repose of the last summit,

infuse in them with your learning

serene intensity

and the essential propriety

of your inherent energy,

oh divine Midday,

plenitude and clarity!