XLVIII
by Luis G. Dato A century of yearnings, fractured dreams, A hundred years of tears shed and unshed, That in my pain I wished I had been dead, But still to live, to stray ‘neath Cynthia’s beams Or hear the…
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
XLVII
by Luis G. Dato Here are the plants one day you left behind, The potted eleucaria, weeds that yet Attest the far-off day when we first met, That waterless in absence for you pined, Your bougainvillea that has since entwined…
XLVI
by Luis G. Dato How long ago your absence, dear, has been, From present days like ancient times away! You seem returned from some primeval day, From cave-walls of prehistory, I ween, From those to these a million years between!…
XLV
by Luis G. Dato How could you love some stranger in my placeWho loves you not as I have loved more dear, Could you have heart to hold another near, The mem’ry of my worship to efface? Could you endure…
XLIV
by Luis G. Dato Count her as lost, no sighs can bid her love As you have loved and through the long nights pined, No balm she holds for wounds she will not bind For pity even, never she thinks…
XLIII
by Luis G. Dato Why can’t you give my life significance Who are the flower, the light of all my seeing, The soul, the spirit, core of all my being, With whom alone the heart can know romance? O know…
XLII
by Luis G. Dato O why did God that we be cleft ordain, And desolate to wend our separate way? Why did He turn to night the gladsome day When I could not your sweet face see again? Is God…
XLI
by Luis G. Dato Why should the world deprive me of the right To hear your voice, your dear face to behold, Within my arms your fair form to enfold, Who are the light, the cause of my delight? What…
XL
by Luis G. Dato O from the world what have you, dear, to fear Because for love you gave to me your heart? What have you done set from the rest apart, Is your compassion cause for shame, the mare…
XXXIX
by Luis G. Dato For, dearest one, I love you with a love More elemental than the earth we tread, More cosmic than the suns that roam o’erhead, The starry firmament that shines above. To love immense, tremendous, need I…
XXXVIII
by Luis G. Dato They tell you, dear, you are not meant for me, That in the grand division which the fates Have all apportioned earthly loves and hates, We have drawn blanks — no dawn, no memory For us.…
XXXVII
by Luis G. Dato Why should you use the world’s all-jaundiced eyes And judge my suit by its too harsh decree? In matters of the heart, ’tis you and me, None else discern where its true happiness lies. “Tis not…
