Thursday, April 30, 2015

"Even Such is Time"


Listen to:

Even Such is Time (:20)

by Sir Walter Ralegh

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode



Even such is time, that takes in trust
Our youth, our joys, our all we have,
And pays us but with earth and dust;
Who, in the dark and silent grave,
When we have wandered all our ways,

Shuts up the story of our days ...

Wednesday, April 29, 2015

"Behold the Child"

Listen to:

"Behold the Child" - excerpt from Intimations of Immortality (4:06)

by William Wordworth

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

III
Behold the Child among his new-born blisses,     
A six years' darling of a pigmy size!           
See, where 'mid work of his own hand he lies,     
Fretted by sallies of his mother's kisses,   
With light upon him from his father's eyes!           
See, at his feet, some little plan or chart,   
Some fragment from his dream of human life,    
Shaped by himself with newly-learnèd art;         
    A wedding or a festival,   
    A mourning or a funeral;
        And this hath now his heart,  
    And unto this he frames his song:         
        Then will he fit his tongue      
To dialogues of business, love, or strife;    
        But it will not be long  
        Ere this be thrown aside,        
        And with new joy and pride   
The little actor cons another part; 
Filling from time to time his 'humorous stage'     
With all the Persons, down to palsied Age,           
That Life brings with her in her equipage;           
        As if his whole vocation           
        Were endless imitation.           







Tuesday, April 28, 2015

The Seven Ages of Man


Listen to:

The Seven Ages of Man

by William Shakespeare

performed by Bob Gonzalez


from As You Like It
Act 2, scene 7

Jacques:
                                     All the world's a stage,
    And all the men and women merely players:
    They have their exits and their entrances;
    And one man in his time plays many parts,
    His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
    Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.
    And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
    And shining morning face, creeping like snail
    Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
    Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
    Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,
    Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
    Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
    Seeking the bubble reputation
    Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice,
    In fair round belly with good capon lined,
    With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
    Full of wise saws and modern instances;
    And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
    Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon,
    With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,
    His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
    For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
    Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
    And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
    That ends this strange eventful history,
    Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
    Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.


Monday, April 27, 2015

What is Our Life?

Listen to:

What is Our Life?

by Sir Walter Ralegh

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode


What is our life? a play of passion,
Our mirth the musicke of division,
Our mothers wombes the tyring houses be,
When we are drest for this short Comedy,
The earth the stage; Heaven the spectator is,
That sits and markes whosoe’er doth act amisse,
Our graves that hide us from the searching Sun,
Are like drawne curtaynes when the play is done,
Thus march we playing to our latest rest,
Onely we dye in earnest, that's no Jest.                            

musicke of division,, the entr'acte, the music that marked
            the division between acts.
tyring houses, on the Elizabethan stage, the 'tiring house',
            from "attiring house" was the room where the actors
            got dressed before a performance.
spector, spectator, with a play on 'spectre'.
still, always, ever.
latest, last.]



Sunday, April 26, 2015

Kubla Khan

Listen to:

Kubla Khan 

Or, A Vision in a Dream. A Fragment

by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.

So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round:
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!
A savage place! as holy and enchanted
As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover!
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced:
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail:
And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean:
And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war!

The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves;
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!

A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw:
It was an Abyssinian maid,
And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of Mount Abora.
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,
To such a deep delight 'twould win me
That with music loud and long
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome! those caves of ice!
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed

And drunk the milk of Paradise.