The Garden

Listen to:

The Garden (1:26)

by Lola Ridge 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

Lola Ridge was born on December 12, 1873, in Dublin. 

Bountiful Givers,
I look along the years
And see the flowers you threw…
Anemones
And sprigs of gray
Sparse heather of the rocks,
Or a wild violet
Or daisy of a daisied field…
But each your best.

I might have worn them on my breast
To wilt in the long day…
I might have stemmed them in a narrow vase
And watched each petal sallowing…
I might have held them so—mechanically—
Till the wind winnowed all the leaves
And left upon my hands
A little smear of dust.

Instead
I hid them in the soft warm loam
Of a dim shadowed place…
Deep
In a still cool grotto,
Lit only by the memories of stars
And the wide and luminous eyes
Of dead poets
That love me and that I love…
Deep…deep…
Where none may see—not even ye who gave—
About my soul your garden beautiful.

The Road Not Taken

Listen to:

The Road Not Taken (1:07)

by Robert Frost

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

Rhapsodize - Reviving the Role of the Rhapsode

Rhapsodize Audio Catalog

Rhapsodize Central

Rhapsodize Vision and Mission