"Poem" by Angela Manalang Gloria

(for C.)

Let the mind be steel and the heart be fallow,
Let the night and the day be one,

Let the dream be no longer a dream and a halo:
Till the crash of judgement day,
He lies, who one broke bread with November
And drank of the wine of May.

He sleeps. And though battlefields turn to clover
And bayonets honor the slain,
Though peace be a tune hummed over and over
In moonlight and sunshine and rain,

The mind is steel and the heart is fallow,
Morning and midnight are one,
The dream is no longer a dream and a halo:
Love is gone.

30 November 1946

Source: Manlapaz, Edna Zapanta, ed. The Complete Poems of Angela Manalang Gloria. Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila UP, 1993. 151