Why Should Your Fair Eyes

Listen to:

Why Should Your Fair Eyes (1:04)

by Michael Drayton  

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

Why should your fair eyes with such sovereign grace 

Disperse their rays on every vulgar spirit, 

Whilst I in darkness in the self-same place 

Get not one glance to recompense my merit? 

So doth the ploughman gaze the wandering star, 

And only rest contented with the light, 

That never learned what constellations are, 

Beyond the bent of his unknowing sight, 

O! why should beauty, custom to obey, 

To their gross sense apply herself so ill? 

Would God I were as ignorant as they, 

When I am made unhappy by my skill; 

Only compelled on this poor good to boast, 

Heavens are not kind to them that know them most. 

Six Honest Serving Men

Listen to:

Six Honest Serving Men (1:03)

by Rudyard Kipling 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

I keep six honest serving-men

 (They taught me all I knew);

Their names are What and Why and When 

 And How and Where and Who.

I send them over land and sea,

 I send them east and west;

But after they have worked for me,

 I give them all a rest.

I let them rest from nine till five,

 For I am busy then,

As well as breakfast, lunch, and tea,

 For they are hungry men.

But different folk have different views; 

I know a person small—

She keeps ten million serving-men,

Who get no rest at all!

She sends 'em abroad on her own affairs,

 From the second she opens her eyes—

One million Hows, two million Wheres,

And seven million Whys!

from Kipling's Just-So Story,

The Elephant's Child 

Sea-Violet

Listen to:

Sea-Violet (:45)

by H. D. 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

The white violet
is scented on its stalk,
the sea-violet
fragile as agate,
lies fronting all the wind
among the torn shells
on the sand-bank.

The greater blue violets
flutter on the hill,
but who would change for these
who would change for these
one root of the white sort?

Violet
your grasp is frail
on the edge of the sand-hill,
but you catch the light—
frost, a star edges with its fire.

The Glow-Worm

Listen to:

The Glow-Worm (1:20)

by William Wordsworth 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

          Among all lovely things my Love had been;

          Had noted well the stars, all flowers that grew

          About her home; but she had never seen

          A glow-worm, never one, and this I knew.

          While riding near her home one stormy night

          A single glow-worm did I chance to espy;

          I gave a fervent welcome to the sight,

          And from my horse I leapt; great joy had I.

          Upon a leaf the glow-worm did I lay,

          To bear it with me through the stormy night:                

          And, as before, it shone without dismay;

          Albeit putting forth a fainter light.

          When to the dwelling of my Love I came,

          I went into the orchard quietly;

          And left the glow-worm, blessing it by name,

          Laid safely by itself, beneath a tree.

          The whole next day, I hoped, and hoped with fear;

          At night the glow-worm shone beneath the tree;

          I led my Lucy to the spot, "Look here,"

          Oh! joy it was for her, and joy for me!     

                

                                                              1802.

To Hope

Listen to:

To Hope (1:14)

by Charlotte Smith 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

Oh, Hope! thou soother sweet of human woes!
    How shall I lure thee to my haunts forlorn!
For me wilt thou renew the wither’d rose,
    And clear my painful path of pointed thorn?
Ah come, sweet nymph! in smiles and softness drest,
    Like the young hours that lead the tender year,
Enchantress! come, and charm my cares to rest:—
    Alas! the flatterer flies, and will not hear!
A prey to fear, anxiety, and pain,
    Must I a sad existence still deplore?
Lo!—the flowers fade, but all the thorns remain,
    “For me the vernal garland blooms no more.”
Come then, “pale Misery’s love!” be thou my cure,
And I will bless thee, who, tho’ slow, art sure.

Snow-Flakes

Listen to:

Snow-Flakes (1:07)

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

Out of the bosom of the Air,

    Out of the cloud-folds of her garments shaken,

Over the woodlands brown and bare,

    Over the harvest-fields forsaken,

      Silent, and soft, and slow

      Descends the snow.

Even as our cloudy fancies take

    Suddenly shape in some divine expression,

Even as the troubled heart doth make

In the white countenance confession,

      The troubled sky reveals

      The grief it feels.

This is the poem of the air,

    Slowly in silent syllables recorded;

This is the secret of despair,

    Long in its cloudy bosom hoarded,

      Now whispered and revealed

      To wood and field.

Song: To Celia

Listen to:

Song: To Celia  (:52)

by Ben Jonson 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

Drink to me only with thine eyes,

         And I will pledge with mine;

Or leave a kiss but in the cup,

         And I’ll not look for wine.

The thirst that from the soul doth rise

         Doth ask a drink divine;

But might I of Jove’s nectar sup,

         I would not change for thine.

I sent thee late a rosy wreath,

         Not so much honouring thee

As giving it a hope, that there

         It could not withered be.

But thou thereon didst only breathe,

         And sent’st it back to me;

Since when it grows, and smells, I swear,

         Not of itself, but thee.

Sonnet: "Lo, Even As I Passed"

Listen to:

Lo, Even As I Passed (:58)

by Wallace Stevens 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

Lo, even as I passed beside the booth

Of roses, and beheld them brightly twine

To damask heights, taking them as a sign

Of my own self still unconcerned with truth;

Even as I held up in hands uncouth

And drained with joy the golden-bodied wine,

Deeming it half-unworthy, half divine,

From out the sweet-rimmed goblet of my youth.

Even in that pure hour I heard the tone

Of grievous music stir in memory,

Telling me of the time already flown

From my first youth. It sounded like the rise

Of distant echo from dead melody,

Soft as a song heard far in Paradise.

Rubaiyat - Verses XXV - XXVIII

Listen to:

Rubaiyat - Verses XXV - XXVIII (1:18)

by Omar Khayyam 

translated by Edward Fitzgerald

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

 XXV
    Alike for those who for To-day prepare,
    And those that after some To-morrow stare,
    A Muezzin from the Tower of Darkness cries    
    "Fools! your Reward is neither Here nor There."


    XXVI
    Why, all the Saints and Sages who discuss'd
    Of the Two Worlds so wisely--they are thrust
    Like foolish Prophets forth; their Words to Scorn
    Are scatter'd, and their Mouths are stopt with Dust.


    XXVII
    Myself when young did eagerly frequent
    Doctor and Saint, and heard great argument
    About it and about: but evermore
    Came out by the same door where in I went.


    XXVIII
    With them the seed of Wisdom did I sow,
    And with mine own hand wrought to make it grow;
    And this was all the Harvest that I reap'd--
    "I came like Water, and like Wind I go."

God in Every Object

Listen to:

God in Every Object (2:12)

by Walt Whitman 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

from Song of Myself    

 48

I have said that the soul is not more than the body,

And I have said that the body is not more than the soul,

And nothing, not God, is greater to one than one's self is,

And whoever walks a furlong without sympathy walks to his own

    funeral drest in his shroud,

And I or you pocketless of a dime may purchase the pick of the earth,

And to glance with an eye or show a bean in its pod confounds the

    learning of all times,

And there is no trade or employment but the young man following it

    may become a hero,

And there is no object so soft but it makes a hub for the wheel'd universe,

And I say to any man or woman, Let your soul stand cool and composed

    before a million universes.

And I say to mankind, Be not curious about God,

For I who am curious about each am not curious about God,

(No array of terms can say how much I am at peace about God and

    about death.)

I hear and behold God in every object, yet understand God not in the least,

Nor do I understand who there can be more wonderful than myself.

Why should I wish to see God better than this day?

I see something of God each hour of the twenty-four, and each moment then,

In the faces of men and women I see God, and in my own face in the glass,

I find letters from God dropt in the street, and every one is sign'd

    by God's name,

And I leave them where they are, for I know that wheresoe'er I go,

Others will punctually come for ever and ever.