by Luis G. Dato
We come from Camarines, Masbate, Sorsogon
Albay, 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 Cebu, we gather, enthroned among her isles,
With graceful palms of overlooking bright seas of deepest blue,
She spreads her arms to seaward, with rows of roofs for miles,
To greet the brine’s wayfarers with Nature’s choicest smiles,
For nowhere else may Fancy unfold so fair a view.
And rugged though our mountains and roaring seas between,
That cleave into a thousand green isles our native shore,
Today we cross the barriers, each changeless rural scene,
All tell of times ancestral when we one race have been,
And though the coming ages as one shell live e’ermore.
And here in Mactan Island, far-famed in song and story,
Where valiant Lapu-Lapu drew forth his shining blade,
The rouse his peers to battle and fil1 the land with glory,
His stand a racial landmark through centuries dark and hoary,
A warning to the despots who would our land invade.
Cebu is a queen city, her people true and kind,
Her faith old as her churches, her schools big as her heart,
Her dreams the wide Visayas in one strong union bind,
Where fellow-Filipinos their virtues lost may find,
To keep in fond remembrance long after they depart
