SONNET ON THE SONNET
By Luis G. Dato A poem of fourteen lines, why, that’s the sonnet, A page of yellow tablet paper stares At us from the bare table, twits and dares Us write one pronto, says it thinks we cannot!To prove it’s…
Category SONNET
“Poetry lives on love, and love is nothing but the worship of woman.”
Luis G. Dato, Philippines Herald Mid-week Magazine, April 6, 1932
CXXVI
by Luis G. Dato And last but not the least the PR side, Our public image if you call it so, The Bulletin wrote up not so long ago That we’re soft-spoken, this must be denied. The Fuentebella brothers we’ve…
CXXV
by Luis G. Dato And now we’re sixty — six decades are run Of the allotted, precious, limited span Which we are pleased to call the life of man, Till his day sets, like setting of the sun. Now by…
CXXIV
by Luis G. Dato And now, at sixty, what the battle-plan To execute until the final day, Before we shall have turned once more to clay, When end at last our world of mortal man? If only it were given…
CXXIII
By Luis G. Dato Now nearing sixty, what report to make To God on high and to the earth below? What record of accomplishments to show, What ripples in life’s sea leave in our wake, As we prepare evading Charon’s…
CXXII
by Luis G. Dato The question nags us, Lord — Do you exist? lf You do, by shores of what strange sea Do You abide, from what infinity Dispel with light the all-surrounding mist? Faith holds not back our Reason…
CXXI
by Luis G. Dato Is man a beast, and, animal, does he Subsistence eke from parsimonious earth? Is it a curse or boon that he has birth, His bliss o’ershadowed by mortality? Is it illusion mere, his liberty. To add…
CXX
by Luis G. Dato Has life its meaning? Maybe it has not! What to the riddle is our answer now, The whence and whither, and the why and how? In vain man through the centuries has sought, To find the…
CXIX
by Luis G. Dato Relentlessly they’re falling, one by one, Like dead leaves parted from the tree of life — The father and grandfather, husband, wife, Brother and uncle, nephew, here and yon. The sunny day that seemed so long…
CXVIII
by Luis G. Dato The end, the end, my dear, it is the end, For all unwitting the glad days shall roll, No less than the sad ones, to blight the soul That sees how all to nothingness portend, And…
CXVII
by Luis G. Dato I stood at Gizeh, where a Pharoah once The dull horizon of Sahara scanned, The while obedient, as to God’s command, And come from all that compassless expanse, From Tigris even and the rilled Sudans, By…
CXVI
by Luis G. Dato My God, my God, with how swift wings the years To make us old on earth too soon have flown, As year on year life’s pageantry we’re shown Through its kaleidoscope of hopes and fears, Someday…
