ADVICE TO YOUTH
By Luis G. Dato Dear youth, be like bamboo that skyward send Their shoots, but with their weight of leaves must bend All pride eschew, it brings but bitter gall, For as was writ, Pride goes before a fall, On…
Category POEM
“One cannot write unless one has known satiety, debauchery, and the intimacy of desire, and can remember them “in moments of tranquility.”
— Luis G. Dato, Philippines Herald Mid-week Magazine in April 6, 1932
THE MOUNTAIN HEAVEN IS
By Luis G. Dato The mountain heaven is, It towers tall to kiss The bluest of blue skies, And the green trees arise, A quiet colonnade While through the flowered glade, The laughing crystal rills Wend round among the hills.…
MOTHER
By Luis G. Dato When evenings cast pale shadows o’er the earth, And silence, like a vast mysterious ghost, Stifles the land and sea from hill to coast, And buries all the tropic suns gave birth; When by myself I…
HOME
By Luis G. Dato High on the banks of a river, Green-crowned with many a vine, Far though I bide in vision, I see the home of mine. The swallows round its window Fly down and round again, When, from…
MY HOME
By Luis G. Dato Up by a leaping stream, And cradled ‘neath a hill, The hallowed moments seem Eternity of thrill. Over the roof cadenas creep, Soft grasses clothe the lawn, Which in the twilight weep With waiting for the…
TORN IDOLS
By Luis G. Dato Mute, unmoved, your silence utters Flames of prophesy, Men, they vow, they swear and onward Deathward, cease to be. Men, who in a false believing, Defied your stone. Men who raised to you contumely, Those and…
BELLS OF SPAIN
By Luis G. Dato Bells of olden years and hoary, What remembrancers! Telling of an unremembered Glory long once theirs. Mission bells that from the distance, Told of God and war, Now from throats grass-grown and rusty, Come the petals…
THE LANES OF ERMITA
By Luis G. Dato I am longing for the gardens of an Eden far away, Where the dream of quaint, rose alleys meets the murmur of the bay, And the dream of this nostalgia loudly through my spirit beats, For…
THE STREETS OF INTRAMUROS (Translated from Joaquin Pellicer y Camacho)
By Luis G. Dato When I wander the streets of Manila, it seems Intramuros awakens my mem’ry again; When at twilight the sun leaves me lone with my dreams Of the heroes of old and the power of Spain. I…
Sonnet to Janina
By Luis G. Dato Janina, I’ve forgotten, What was it You wrote addendum on your X’mas Card? This business growing old is rather hard On memory and mind, on nerve, on wit, No walk-away from grandpa to stay fit And…
GOD SAVE THE QUEEN!
by Luis G. Dato Baao, Camarines Sur Philippines The question might be asked: “Why do we have A King and Queen, and we, each like a slave Bow to the court and our allegiance give?” Why do we to say,…
THE PARTED WAYS
by Luis G. Dato I will not sigh to you in starry night, When songs, like flowers, clamber your stone walls, That, in my stranger loneliness of heart, For you the dreaming of the spirit calls, I will not whisper…
