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.

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.]

Kubla Khan

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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.

Sonnet: To the River Otter

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Sonnet: To the River Otter

by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

performed by Bob Gonzalez

Sonnet: To the River Otter

by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Dear native brook! wild streamlet of the West!

How many various-fated years have passed,

What happy and what mournful hours, since last

I skimmed the smooth thin stone along thy breast,

Numbering its light leaps! Yet so deep impressed

Sink the sweet scenes of childhood, that mine eyes

I never shut amid the sunny ray,

But straight with all their tints thy waters rise,

Thy crossing plank, thy marge with willows grey,

And bedded sand that, veined with various dyes,

Gleamed through thy bright transparence! On my way,

Visions of childhood! oft have ye beguiled

Lone manhood's cares, yet waking fondest sighs:

Ah! that once more I were a careless child!

The Time I've Lost in Wooing

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The Time I’ve Lost in Wooing

by Thomas Moore

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

The time I’ve lost in wooing,

In watching and pursuing

The light, that lies

In woman’s eyes,

Has been my heart’s undoing.

Though Wisdom oft has sought me,

I scorn’d the lore she brought me,

My only books

Were woman’s looks,

And folly’s all they’ve taught me.

Her smile when Beauty granted,

I hung with gaze enchanted,

Like him the Sprite,

Whom maids by night

Oft meet in glen that’s haunted.

Like him, too, Beauty won me,

But while her eyes were on me,

If once their ray

Was turn’d away,

Oh! winds could not outrun me.

And are those follies going?

And is my proud heart growing

Too cold or wise

For brilliant eyes

Again to set it glowing?

No, vain, alas! th’ endeavour

From bonds so sweet to sever;

Poor Wisdom’s chance

Against a glance

Is now as weak as ever.

The World Is Too Much With Us

by William Wordsworth

One of his most famous sonnets.

listen to ‘"The World Is Too Much With Us" by William Wordsworth’ on Audioboo

"Requiem" by Robert Louis Stevenson

Requiem by Robert Louis Stevenson

Performed by Bob Gonzalez

             

 REQUIEM

  Under the wide and starry sky,
  Dig the grave and let me lie.
  Glad did I live and gladly die,
    And I laid me down with a will.

  This be the verse you grave for me:
  "Here he lies where he longed to be;
  Home is the sailor, home from sea,
    And the hunter home from the hill."