“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
(An English version of Florante at Laura by Francisco Balagtas as available to the translator in the Bikol version.) Translated by Luis G. Dato By a forest dim and shadowed, Dark with eaves and many thorns, Through whose brambly wildernesses,…
(Handiong epic is translated from the Spanish version of Fray Jose Castaño) Translated by Luis G. Dato YLING (to Kadugnung): Kadugnung, minstrel wise, Of Handiong’s time sing on, With your famed silver lyre The sweet land of Aslon, For only…
by Luis G. Dato Peñafrancia, Peñafrancia, By the river stands thy shrineSanctuary and temple radiant Showering thy grace divine. Peñafrancia , dear dark lady, Far-famed Bikol Patroness, Ever every home and hamlet Of the Bikol region bless. Great thy name…
by Luis G. Dato This baffled strangeness when chance makes us meet, This puzzled diffidence as eye on eye, I search your soul’s unfathomed mystery, These words inadequate that strive and beat, Deep from the heart like dove’s wings poised…
by Luis G. Dato I wait to see you pass by in the dawn, Day’s all too drear, till when the sun sinks low, I thrill with hope as o’er the green, cool lawnYou came to light my heart with…
by Luis G. Dato The leader, what must Catholics possessThat the apostolate may win success?They must be firm, sincere and fired with faithWhose flashes, Phoenix-like, transcend their death. They must be pure, like Galahad of old,Who would return the stray…
by Luis G. Dato The wage of sin is death, the death of man,But death formed not a part of God’s first plan,“Twas Adam only brought woe to our earth,By sins which henceforth coupled death with birth. As not result…
by Luis G. Dato The sacraments present an outward right,They rescue from horrendous moral night,Which Christ did institute to grant the graceThat all the world’s grant sins alone efface. In baptism, God’s vicar uses oil,And water for the sins that…
by Luis G. Dato Act in the living present, poets sayTo make the morrow better than today,Alas! the Catholic apostolateWe let it down to mourn a better fate. Because to meet there is no better world,We hear no call, no…
by Luis G. Dato Knowledge is power, but what and how shall weExplore in cosmos and its mystery?What, where the Key the universe to learn,The wisdom erudite true Christian yearn? Knowledge is power, ’tis what the Scribes did say,But grace…
by Luis G. Dato Pieta, pieta, and study, action, too,These triumvirate of virtue true,They are man’s weapons shielding him from harm,His main defensive and offensive arm. Khayyam once said, “When young did I frequentDoctor and Saint and heard great argumentAbout…
by Luis G. Dato How man has fallen from his high estate,From his straight mandates with his sins deviate,Rejoicing and rebelling from His reignEmprise of Lucifer, like him, all vain. In life, what strange bedfellows sin and grace!The light departs…
