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In life there is no pleasure
To love and youth unknown,
For love is life’s one treasure,
And love and life are one.
In youth there is one sorrow
To love and life well known,
For beauty fades to-morrow
When youth from love has flown.
But love is like the shower
That waters gardens dry,
And brings to earth a flower
That blooms, but cannot die.
From Manila: A Collection of Verse (Imp. Paredes, Inc., 1926) by Luis Dato. This poem is in the public domain.
Little lone swallow frequenting the skies in the bleakness of oncoming rain,
Gloating on the view by the river reflected when days of sun reappear,
You who can sing in the fulness of sorrow, and in seasons of gladness usefully sing,
You who in mirth and melancholy alike find joy, joy in you we find.
I sit upon the white rocks by the bay,
Against whose hollows numberless, the waves
Will splash forevermore. The sunset laves
The deep with light. There rise far away
A mountain that has seemingly defied
The very clouds unchanged. And near, portending
That all created things will have an ending,
Out where the wild vines spread
Upon the winding walls,
I hear melodious madrigals
And music from the dead.
There where the grasses hang
Their canopy of leaves,
Which oft at dawn receives
Matins the mayas sang,