The Ancient Filipino Writers

 Angela Manalang Gloria

(ca. 1915 - 1996)
Lyric poet, pianist, and editor, had her roots in Guagua, Pampanga, but her ancestors went to Albay and prospered. When she was about eight years old, she became fascinated with books, read avidly, and in consequence her eyesight was seriously impaired. She loved music (played the piano very well), nature and things dainty and beautiful.
She started her early schooling with the Benedictine Sisters in Albay, and in Manila continued under the tutelage of the same religious order. She then transferred to another girls' school, Sta. Scholastica, and graduated salutatorian in 1925. In school she continued pursuing her interest in music in hopes of becoming a great pianist. After graduation from high school she proceeded to UP and started taking pre-law subjects, at the same time going into painting. C. V. Vicker, a member of the UP faculty, noticed her creative work and advised her to change her program of study. She shifted her course to the liberal arts and graduated summa cum laude with an A.B. in philosophy in 1929.
In UP she worked with the Philippine Collegian as a literary editor, with Celedonio P. Gloria as editor-in-chief. Their friendship culminated in marriage. Subsequently, her husband, who finished the LL.B. in UP, went into law practice. She became editor of the Herald Mid-Week Magazine but had to resign six months later because of poor health. WWII came and her husband died. Her creative writing gradually diminished.
From the idealist that she was when younger, she emerged a pragmatist, a practical woman reshaped by the realities of life. She had found that life is not all love, that love is not the only way to one's goal. She realized that this world is "circumferenced with lucre/ within a coin of brass." She plunged into business and traveled and prospered. But Philippine literature lost her.
Poems (1940) was, in 1987, the only partial collection of her notable poems. She is essentially a lyric poet voicing her moods and desires in musical, singing stanzas. She finds standard rime and rhythm adequate to her needs. The music in her sonnets is "sweeter and more tender [and more melodious] than Tarrosa's" (Trinidad Tarrosa-Subido), wrote a commentator, but the two lack the verve and exuberance and vitality of that love in the sonnets of Torribia Maño.

Poetry of Angela:

Angelita

Angelita, you'll surely yield 
now.
And so, you sly witch, you will
dare to refuse,
And think with your smiles you 
have me in a ruse?
You child, I will like you
no more! 
You there stand like an angel
from the azure above, 
And you flaunt in my face that 
pure emblem of love—
Angelita, I will like you no 
more!

Please come here, you fair imp,
do not run from me so; 
You must kiss your tocaya before 
you can go;
Angelita, if you won't, you
will see. 
You may trip and may skip with
your elfinish grace: 
But I'll catch you and have you 
within my embrace.
Angelita, if I don't, you will
see.

Ah, my elf, how you laugh in your
innocent glee, 
As you teasingly try from my
hold to be free—
Angelita, just kiss me goodbye. 
You are leaving me now, but then
promise me this:
Don't forget the tocaya you gave 
so much bliss.
Angelita, remember— 
goodbye!

***


Sketches 

I
Fades the Dusk? 
I see it
In clouds of frankincense, 
Grey and greyer still,
Wafted
From golden censers on floral chains,
Nightwards . . .

II
Stays the Night? 
Leave it so— 
A lyre of ebony 
Draped in spangled gossamer, 
Sepulchered in a subterranean tomb, 
And untouched 
Forever . . .

III
Flits the Dawn? 
I find it
In the valley of the mystics, 
In a kiosk beside the fountain, 
In the winging fantasy
Of an amber
Butterfly’s tremor . . .

***


Starlight Fantasy 


My starlight fantasy weaves 
A pearly mist that spans the void of the past. 
The shimmer of the hovering dusk,
Wafts back the echo alone. 

Snapped asunder
Are the silver strings of my Harp of Youth!
Night and gloom together fall, 
Night on the ark, deserted terrace,
Gloom on my dazed, bewildered being,
As I grope—
Groping in vain—
For the broken chord.
Lost forever,
The music of the dryads,
Evermore to return!
Nevermore to whisper
The Ave of incarnate day; 
Nevermore to fathom 
The long, low sigh of Phoebe vanquished. 
Only a phantom remains—
Treads in satin footfalls,
And walls for the lost Elysium.
And remains. 

I heard then—
The silver laughter of the dancing waterfall,
The piping of the wind—king through the dell,
The kiss of the wavelet stray on the moonlit beach, 
These, 
In a throbbing cadence—
Give me back these, 
O tremulous spirit of the starlight!
A wisp of the golden bar
That flanks the heaving western front—
This, and not 
The funeral dirge of night!

Never? 
Then why haunt me till? 
Cling not to me, but leave!
No longer shall I seek vain rainbow sprites
Nor any longer chase the moonbeam’s sheen—
But the chord is hushed,
Mute,
Always eluding my grasp.

My starlight fantasy weaves
A pearly mist that spans the void of the past.
The shimmer of the hovering dusk,
Wafts back the echo alone.


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