explain the meaning of this poem.?

Question

You Ask me for Verses
by Jose Rizal
You bid me now to strike the lyre,
That mute and torn so long has lain:
And yet I cannot wake the strain,
Nor will the Muse one note inspire!
Coldly it shakes in accenta dire,
As if my soul itself to wring,
And when its sound seems but to fling
A jest at its own low lament;
So in sad isolation pent,
My soul can neither feel nor sing.
There was a time-ah, 't is too true -
But that time long ago has past -
When upon me the Muse had cast
Indulgent smile and friendship's due;
But of that age now all too few
The thoughts that with me yet will stay;
As from the hours of festive play
There linger on mysterious notes,
And in our minds the memory floats
Of minstrelsy and music gay.
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 apreading 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 seems the while
Seething volcanic fires to play.
A bard I was, my wish alway
To call upon the fleeting wind,
With all the force of verse and mind:
"Go forth, and spread around its flame
From zone to zone with glad acclaim,
And earth to heaven together bind !"
But it I left, and now no more -
Like a tree that is broken and sere -
My natal gods bring the echo clear
Of songs that in past times they bore;
Wide seas I cross'd to foreign shore,
With hope of change and other fate;
My folly waa made clear too late,
For in the place of good I sought
The seas reveal'd unto me naught,
But made death's specter on me wait.
All these fond fancies that were mine,
AIl love, all feeling, all emprise,
Were left beneath the sunny skies,
Which o'er that flowery region shine;
So press no more that plea of thine,
For songs of love from out a heart
That coldly liea a thing apart;
Since now with tortur'd soul I haste
Unresting o'er the desert waste,
And lifeless gone is all the art.

Answer 1

This is, I think, a poem written when Jose Rizal was in the depths of depression. Partly home-sickness for his country, but married also with love-sickness for his lost love, Leonor Rivera. She was his sweetheart for 11 years, and had had perhaps the greatest influence in keeping him from falling in love with other women during his travels. Unfortunately, Leonor's mother disapproved of her daughter's relationship with Rizal, who was then a known 'filibustero'. She hid all his letters from Leonor who, believing that Rizal had already forgotten her, sadly consented to marry her mother's choice of husband, an Englishman by the name of Henry Kipping

Answer 2

I think this poem is dedicated by Jose Rizal to Leonor Rivera. Am I right? Rizal was so depressed that Leonor Rivera is getting married to another man.

Answer 3

As Marcuse once said: " It's not the poem on life eternal but the life of the poet whose wisdom is in the knowing of the feint at heart that go not into the well of inspiration."

Answer 4

what is the meaning of any poem ...it is a torcher song of a burned out poet...very beautiful

Answer 5

you hurt me, i want the sex back, i cant function without you, i hurt so bad so bad so bad, make it go away. he missies his bird