mi ultimo adios

Rizal Shrine's second floor... it has three rooms: 1) souvenir shop; 2) glass cases showing Jose Rizal's suits/clothes and other stuff; and 3) a room with just writings on the floors and the walls (didn't read those stuff so please dont ask me what are they, this room also shows the lampara (alcohol lamp) and the kusinilya (small stove) in this photo. (If you take a closer look, you'll see my reflection in the glass).

Background why this stove is very important and such is the title of this post.
Rizal's attack on the Spanish occupation is non-violent but his writings/novels irked the Spanish government and friars which led to his arrest and execution. The day before his execution, his mother and sisters visited him in the cell and as they were about to leave, Rizal told them that there is something in the stove. Jose Rizal wrote the poem Mi Ultimo Adios (Huling Paalam in Tagalog), which expresses his love for his native land and hid it in this tiny stove. From this stove his family recovered a folded paper with this poem of 14 five-line stanzas, unsigned and untitled. This poem was circulated to his friends and was known to be his last testament and it was Marciano Ponce who gave the title to the poem.

This is the first stanza of the poem as translated in English: My Last Farewell. To read the whole poem click here.

Farewell, beloved Country, treasured region of the sun,
Pearl of the sea of the Orient, our vanquished Eden!
To you I gladly surrender this melancholy life;
And were it brighter, fresher, gaudier,
Even then I’d give it to you, to you alone would then I give.