The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1902-07-30

that their evidence was wrung from
them by torture. He was condemned
to be shot the next day at dawn. On
the day of his condemnation he was
married to Josephine Bracken. She
spent that night on her knees outside
the prison walls. He received the min
istrations of his church. In the MORN
ing, perfectly calm, he said, What is
death to me? have sown; others are
left to reap" Then he was shot
On the night before his death he
wrote poem. 1 will read it, that the
house may know what were the "last
thoughts" of this pirate" this "bar-
barian," this Savage" of a race "in.
capable of civilization"
MY LAST THOUGHT.
Land adore, farewell! thou land of the
southern suns choosing!
Pearl of the Orient seas! our forfeited
Garden of Eden!
Joyous, 1 yield up for thee my sad life
and were it far brighter.
/ Young. rose-strewn, for thee and tn!
happiness still would give it.
Far afield, in the din and rush of mad
dening battle.
Others have laid down their lives. moi
wavered, nor paused in the giving.
What matters way or place-the cyprus
the lily. the laurel
Gibbet or open field the sword or in
glorious torture
When tits the hearth and the country
that call for the lffe's immolation?
Dawn's faint lights bar the east, she
smiles through the cowl of the dark
ness,
Just as 1 die -.
Vision 1 followed from far. desire that
spurred on and consumed me!
Greeting! my parting soul cries, and
greetings again! o my country!
Beautiful is it to fall. that the vision may
rise in fulfllment,
Giving my life for thy life, and breathing
thine air in the death throe;
Sweet to eternally sleep in thy lap, o lane
of enchantment!
If in the deep rich grass that covers my
rest in thy bosom.
Some day thou seest upspring a lowly
tremulous blossom,
Lay there thy lips, tits my soul:
And if at eventide soul for my tranqul
sleep prayeth.
Pray thou. too, o my fatherland! for my
peaceful reposing;
Pray for those who go down to death
through unspeakable torments;
Pray for those who remain to suffer tor.
ture in prison:
Pray for the bitter grief of our mothers
our widows. our orphans;
oh, pray, too. for thyself on the way tc
thy final redeml ption.
When our still dwelling place wraps
nights dusky mantle about her,
Leaving the dead alone with the dead
to watch till the morning,
Break not our rest, and seek not to lay
deaths mystery open.
If now and then thou shouldst hear the
string of a lutte or zthern,
Mine is the hand, dear country, and mine
is the voice that Is singing.
When my tomb. that all have forgot, ne
cross nor stone marketh,
There let the laborer guide his plow
there cleave the earth orcn.
So shall my ashes at last be one with thy
hills and thy valleys.
Little twill matter then, my country
that thou shouldst forget me!
shall be air in thy streets. and l shall
be space in thy meadows.
I shall be vibrant speecH in thine ears
shall be fragrance and color,
Light and shout, and loved song, forever
repeating my message.
ldolized fatherland. thou crown and deep
of my sorrows,
Lovely Philippine isles, once again adieu!
/ am leaving
All with thee-my friends, my love.
Where / go are no tyrants;
There ONE dies not for the cause of his
faith, there God Is the ruler.
Farewell, father and mother and broth
ers, dear friends of the firesde!
Thankful we should be for me that l rest
at the end of the long day.
Farewell, sweet, from the strangers land,
my Joy and my comrade!
Farewell. dear ones, farewell To die Is
to rest from our labors.
Pirates! Barbarians! Savages. In
capable of civilization! How many of
the civilized, Caucasian slanderers of
his race, could ever be capable of
thoughts like these, which on that aw-
full night, as he sat alone amidst silence
unbroken save by the rustling of the
black plumes of the death angel at his
side, poured from the soul of the mar
tyred Filipino? Search the long and
bloody roll of the worlds martyred
dead, and where-on what soil, under
what sky-did tyranny ever claim a
nobler victim?
Sir, the future is not without hope
for a people which, from the midst OF
such an environment, has furnished to
the world character SO lofty and SO
pure as that of Jose Rial.