Rhapsode Daily Practice - A Minuet

George Santayana 

Rhapsode Repertory-Building Practice Session - March 21, 2014   Duration: 3m 43s 
from the Rhapsode Daily Practice and Rehearsals page on the Internet Archive

featuring a performance of 

A Minuet on Reaching the Age of Fifty  by George Santayana

Today's Rhapsode Repertory-Building Practice Session takes place in my home studio, my computer room, where I sit in from of my iMac and record into my Samson Go-Mic from a text on the computer screen. This one is from the Internet Archive copy of George Santayana's book of Poems. The poem is called "A Minuet on Reaching the Age of Fifty." It is also found in Oscar Williams' anthology, Immortal Poems of the English Language.

Jorge Agustín Nicolás Ruiz de Santayana y Borrás, known as George Santayana (December 16, 1863 – September 26, 1952), was a philosopher, essayist, poet, and novelist. A lifelong Spanish citizen, Santayana was raised and educated in the United States and identified himself as an American, although he always kept a valid Spanish passport. He wrote in English and is generally considered an American man of letters. At the age of forty-eight, Santayana left his position at Harvard and returned to Europe permanently, never to return to the United States. His last will was to be buried in the Spanish Pantheon of the Cimitero Monumentale del Verano in Rome. (from Wikipedia article)