Love knock
by Luis G. Dato Knock, knock, knock. I knock at the gate of your heart. Only the hollow rustling of dead leaves answered my call. What if a blight have passed To see the the beauty within? I shall be…
Luis G. Dato
Filipino Poet, Writer and Educator
Luis Dato
Luis G. Dato (July 4, 1906 - January 29, 1985) was a poet, writer and educator from Sta. Cruz, Baao, Camarines Sur. He published books in English including Manila A Collection of verse (1926), My Book of Verses (1936) and the Land of Mai in 1975. He also wrote several books and text in Bikol such as, Vocabulario Bikol-Ingles-Kastila (1963), Cantahon na Bikol (1969), Morfologia kan Tataramon na Bikol (serialized in Naga Times), Patotodon sa Bikol (Bikol Mail) and Sarabihon sa Bikol.
Last Word
By Luis Dato BELOVED, I regretThe world to leave,Since you might not forget;Still burns unquenched an ember. You still rememberWas this my fate?Still burns unquenched an emberIn you of hate. Beloved, I must leave,Is there regret?If love were wrong, forgive,If…
Forgotten Songs
By Luis Dato The songs I sang in childhoodWhen I from care was free,Again I hear in momentsEntwined in memory. And with the songs of childhood,The past returns once more,Again I am as yesterday,A child by summer’s shore. God grant…
Two Sonnets
By Luis Dato Harvest ‘Mid stalks low-bending with sun-ripened grain,You loomed upon my ravished, sinful eyes;I listened lost in wondering surprise,While in the evening rang your sweet refrain.Weeping, I wished I were some hamlet swain,And, like him, quietened into looks…
Morning
By Luis G. Dato The morn beams my unseeing eyes caress,And, sudden, like some olden sorcery,Blind pupils open, filmy folds fall by,And now I see what I could only guess,The tumbled blossoms and a wildernessAnd disarray arrest the wakened eye,Here,…
VIA VITAE
by Luis G. Dato This is the way we all will take (Good heavens! it is near a lake!), Way of all flesh, the way of life Punctuated with incessant strife. Behind the lake, the river winds Its course until…
St. Monica Academy (SMA) Alma Mater Song
by Marcial L. Briones/Luis G. Dato Hail dear Alma Mater, thee we honorProudly in the dawn we raise thy bannerSanta Monica, Sweet Alma MaterWith thy praise thy loyal sons and daughters Fill the land wherever they may roamAlma Mater, Alma…
X’MAS, 1975
by Luis G. Dato This be our anguished prayer this x’mas day —May God our country save in disarray, May the good Lord who made the nations free, Our bondage end, return our liberty! For freedom, Lord, it is a…
XXI
by Luis G. Dato ‘Tis strange that I should falter in this hour, As thus we stand in the last light of day, Strange that my lips refuse their word to say, As in your hands you crush a silk-blown…
CXV
I ride beside you in the jolting bus, And at the contact of your arm, your hand, Exhilaration surge beyond command And sweep o’er me, between the two of us, Above the hiss of traffic and the fuss O’er fare…
