Tinggallah tuan, tinggallah bunda
Tanah airku Sumatera raya
Anakda berangkat ke pulau Jawa
Memungut bunga suntingan kepala
Leave, leave your mother’s lap
My native land Sumatra
Your son is leaving for Java
To pick a flower for his ear

This poem was probably written in 1927. We can feel the traditional old Malay poetic form: each verse made up of four lines; the rhythm moving in every line always made up of pairs of words forming five or six syl