Filipino Poet, Writer and Educator
(From Rizal’s Dedication) by Luis G. Dato A time was there when in the cruel throesOf unborn Right a nation’s blood was shed.Times of travail when, threatening and dread.The gallows shouted “Death!” at once to thoseWho from a trodden native…
by Luis G. Dato Long have I spent my days of youth in dreamingA life of love when you by fate were mine,Long have I sighed through time, the long hours deemingMe happy in our eyes divine. Long have I…
by Luis G. Dato I love that I may callTo mind the buried past,That through Time’s heavy pallThe dead may wake at last. I love that as I sighAbove an empty earth,l might forget and dieAnd rest me of this…
by Luis G. Dato Alas that life should be a dreamCompared to the unending sun!Rose throbbing o’er the flowing streamToday, tomorrow senseless ground! Alas that we cannot but stayOnly as comes the ocean wind,A sigh we hear above the WayAnd…
O her motion was charming, her figure enchanting,I recall these too clearly with the thought she is dead,And her eyes they were wondrous, her lips they were redAs a rose freshly cut in the warm day-wind panting;And the shape of…
by Luis G. Dato I am a singer of strange forgetfulness.Song in my lips, but in my heart a wound;I am the bruised bird, singer of the evening,Which morning finds, wing-shattered, on the ground.
By Luis G. Dato All the USANT voices singIn accents loud and clearAll the USANT echoes ringFor the school we love so dear Here we march in search of a songPast all barriers and all hillsHere to start and here…
A SURVEY OF FILIPINO POETRY IN ENGLISH is an article, written by Luis G. Dato, which originally appeared in the Philippines Herald Mid-week Magazine in April 6, 1932 about his thoughts on classical poetry and the future of the emergence…
by Luis G. Dato Our independence! over all the landOur people proud and jubilant all stand,To see upon the masts with tear-dimmed eyes,The sun and stars reach proudly to the skies. Blessed independence! may it ever beThe radiant symbol of…
by Luis G. Dato With the dead shroud of past days to my face,I find but solitude upon the way,With Memory’s light to guide my pen I traceThis, lest today forget its yesterday. As surely as the rose that we…
