"I left her!...My native hearth,
a tree despoiled and shriveled,
no longer repeats the echo
of my old songs of mirth.
I sailed across the vast ocean
craving to change my fate,
not noting in my madness
that instead of the weal I sought,
the sea around me wrought
the spectre of death and sadness."

- Excerpt from a poem by Jose Rizal entitled "They Ask Me for Verses", 1882