Category SONNET

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…

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…

by Luis G. Dato On a sofa, you sit beside me near, Your picture smiling from the sala wall. At last! and if your face I see at all, Beyond recall you rouse desire, I fear! Not that the world…

by Luis G. Dato Waiting for two to make a foursome game Beside the empty table by the wall, We look up when we see some neighbors call And from somewhere hear mention of your name, How opportune that at…

by Luis G. Dato Waiting for you, I light a cigarette, A pack, in fact, and all about the floor The ashes flip — this late you’ll come no more, Or maybe you’ll be late, you’ll not forget That here…

by Luis G. Dato In the hot sun, the low, damp fields exude A warmth, a sultriness presaging rain. The wind no breath of life gives to the plain And the still branches of the somnolent wood, Earth’s a tremendous…

by Luis G. Dato How far into the matter have you gone, O dear, in the rapport to have with God? What thoughts crept of the ultimate abode, In your quiet moments in the night alone, What light of hope…

by Luis G. Dato Last night to a kinswoman’s wake we went — The house threw o’er the street a garish glare, And as we climbed the lighted, well-worn stair I mused on life and death, what they all meant;…

by Luis G. Dato Ah, no return, mark this, nor e’er forget Our days are numbered, and each passing year Our paths on earth which we have found do dear Are that much shortened as the bright suns set; And…

by Luis G. Dato How quiet grow the grass and how tall Which I pass by along a lonely road, How sleep the dead in their last, sad abode, Enclosed by reeds, the ruined, grass-grown wall That all constrict the…

by Luis G. Dato The cemetery is the house of death, By reeds surrounded and rank growth of grass, What dreary thoughts assail us as we pass, Unwanted come, like phantom Death, by stealth, Ephemeral on earth we drew our…

by Luis G. Dato How sad, how sad the human pilgrimage, How tragic, O how tragic human fate! Our Book has taught us we are lords and great, God’s heir and Adam’s from the primal age; And yet we find…