“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
by Luis G. Dato Your tears and sighs and loneliness conspireTo cast a shadow o’er this calm moonrise,As lone as you weep by wakeless tombs where liesSome being dearest to your heart’s desire,Your prayers soar to happy heavens higherWhere fines…
by Luis G. Dato For many a day of sunlight,Her eyes surveyed the waves,And in her glances one nightDescry her cold, white grave. For many days she waitedHer eyes with weeping warm,To bare boughs undulatedIn the loud-howling storm. Her days,…
(with the collaboration of Taciano Rey) Beside the Gulf of LagonoyAmong the hillocks hiddenA hamlet greets the rising sunsAlike a view of EdenAnd heaven is that charmed standWhere woods and waves come blendingAbide a people in delightThat never knows as…
by Luis G. Dato I sought you always in the world’s wide places,In piers and places, the roaring street,Where the world’s pilgrims worn with aching feet,Seek as I sought you mid strange, unknown faces.Albeit I found you not, but only…
by Luis G. Dato O radiant royal beauty,It is a pleasant dutyTo praise you to the skies;I deem no greater pleasureThan lauding in rimed measureYour reign which we all treasure,Though time forgets and flies. From near and far-off places,Come friendly…
by Luis G. Dato For once again we saw them, figured, no requestOf those like us enchanted, their eyes to charm and rest,And those from San Fernando, Ingkoy-Ingkoy danced well,They moved in faultless rhythm, and wove round us a spell.…
by Luis G. Dato We asked on debarkation; ”Where are the fair Indays,For which Visayan Islands to all the land are known?”The few we chanced upon were not hard upon the eyes,But not exactly hour is earth lend-leased from the…
by Luis G. Dato We come from Camarines, Masbate, SorsogonAlbay, Catanduanes, to form the Bikol band,With Mindanao, together with North and South Luzon,To join Eaşt-west Visayas in friendly feasts of brawn,With brothers widely scattered of one fair motherland. In fair…
by Luis G. Dato Dear Alma Mater, in whose pleasant hallDeeply we crank of knowledge, heard the callFrom realms of Truth that beckon evermore,And tarried by the founts of wisdom’s lore;Your memories like bells at vespers tollTheir golden benediction to…
by Luis G. Dato O chosen Helmsman of our Ship of State,With powerful hands and soul filled with light,Te steer the Nation to a happier fate,Toward the Victory long-deferred of Right –Today we cheer to see the overthrowOf evil power…
by Luis G. Dato Translated from the Spanish by Mr. Luis G. Dato Hail, Temple Great of Science dear,Where youth forever seeks the lureOf light beyond the years obscureThat saw it first on earth,Thou fountain from the springs whereofIs quenched…
by Luis G. Dato We love my school it stands besideA rippling brook and rice fields wide,Her dapdap flowers, arching treesBestow serene an air of peace. Our school we love, in it we seeA second home that lets us beAnd…
