Speech Choir

So this is the piece:

Like the Molave

by: Zuleta de Costa

I.

Not yet, Rizal, not yet. Sleep not in peace:

There are a thousand waters to be spanned;

There are a thousand mountains to be crossed;

There are a thousand crosses to be borne.

Our shoulders are not strong; our sinews are

Grown flaccid with dependence, smug with ease

Under another’s wing.

II.

Rest not in peace;

Not yet, Rizal, not yet. The land has need

Of young blood – and, what younger than your own,

Forever spilled in the great name of freedom,

Forever oblate on the altar of

The free?

Not you alone, Rizal.

III.

O souls

And spirits of the martyred brave, arise!

Arise and scour the land! Shed once again

Your willing blood! Infuse the vibrant red

Into our thin anaemic veins; until

We pick up your Promethean tools and, strong,

Out of the depthless matrix of your faith

In us, and on the silent cliffs of freedom,

We carve for all time your marmoreal dream!

Until your people, seeing, are become

Like the molave, firm, resilient, staunch,

Rising on the hillside unafraid,

Strong in its own fibre; yes, like the molave!

IV.

We, the Filipinos of today, are soft,

Easy-going, parasitic, frivolous,

Inconstant, indolent, inefficient.

Would you have me sugarcoat you?

I would be happier to shower praise upon

My countrymen. . . but let us be realists. . .

Let us strip ourselves. . . .

Youth of the land, you are a bitter pill to swallow.

Suggestions are really appreciated.

Thanks!!