By Muhammad Yamin, 1921

Listening to the waves close to me
Pounding to the left and to the right
Chanting a song full of compassion
Awakened is a longing for the place of my birth.

In the East on my side
Shrouded in cloud-billowed skies
Appears the island full of marvels
That assuredly is the country of my birth.

Wherever the sea may pound and crash
And run seething up the sand
That is where my soul is, was first cast forth.

Wherever the waves may spraying writhe
Watering the isle of the Barisan Range along its coast
That is the place please, lay me to rest.

On the Indian Ocean, June 1921

Padang city, West Sumatra

Request (Permintaan) was first published in Indonesian in the Dutch-language journal Jong Sumatra : organ van den Jong Sumatranen Bond, Batavia, June 1921. It was republished in Pane, Armijn (ed), Sandjak-Sandjak Muda Mr. Muhammad Yamin [The Young Poems of Mr. Muhammad Yamin], Firma Rada, Djakarta, 1954, p. 6.