On Fruition

Listen to:

On Fruition (:38)

by Sir Charles Sedley 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

None, but a Muse in love, can tell

The sweet tumultuous joys I feel,

When on Cælia’s breast I lie,

When I tremble, faint, and die;

Mingling kisses with embraces,

Darting tongues, and joining faces,

Panting, stretching, sweating, cooing,

All in the ecstasy of doing.

 (from Works, 1722)

To His Coy Love

Listen to:

To His Coy Love (1:29)

by Michael Drayton 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

I pray thee, leave, love me no more,

  Call home the heart you gave me!

I but in vain that saint adore

  That can but will not save me.

These poor half-kisses kill me quite—

  Was ever man thus servèd?

Amidst an ocean of delight

  For pleasure to be starvèd?

Show me no more those snowy breasts

  With azure riverets branchèd,

Where, whilst mine eye with plenty feasts,

  Yet is my thirst not stanchèd;

O Tantalus, thy pains ne'er tell!

  By me thou art prevented:

'Tis nothing to be plagued in Hell,

  But thus in Heaven tormented.

Clip me no more in those dear arms,

  Nor thy life's comfort call me,

O these are but too powerful charms,

  And do but more enthral me!

But see how patient I am grown

  In all this coil about thee:

Come, nice thing, let my heart alone,

  I cannot live without thee!

Most Sweet It Is

Listen to:

Most Sweet It Is  (:58)

by William Wordsworth 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

Most sweet it is with unuplifted eyes
To pace the ground, if path be there or none,
While a fair region round the traveller lies
Which he forbears again to look upon;
Pleased rather with some soft ideal scene,
The work of Fancy, or some happy tone
Of meditation, slipping in between
The beauty coming and the beauty gone.
If Thought and Love desert us from that day,
Let us break off all commerce with the Muse:
With Thought and Love companions of our way,
Whate’er the senses take or may refuse,
The Mind’s internal heaven shall shed her dews
Of inspiration on the humblest lay.

Devouring Time

Listen to:

Devouring Time (1:14)

by William Shakespeare 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

Sonnet XIX.

Devouring Time, blunt thou the lion's paws,

And make the earth devour her own sweet brood;

Pluck the keen teeth from the fierce tiger's jaws,

And burn the long-lived phoenix in her blood;

Make glad and sorry seasons as thou fleet'st,

And do whate'er thou wilt, swift-footed Time,

To the wide world and all her fading sweets;

But I forbid thee one most heinous crime:

O! carve not with thy hours my love's fair brow,

Nor draw no lines there with thine antique pen;

Him in thy course untainted do allow

For beauty's pattern to succeeding men.

Yet, do thy worst old Time: despite thy wrong,

My love shall in my verse ever live young.

How do I love thee?

Listen to:

How do I love thee? (1:13)

by Elizabeth Barrett Browning 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

Sonnets from the Portuguese 43: 

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

I love thee to the depth and breadth and height

My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight

For the ends of being and ideal grace.

I love thee to the level of every day’s

Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.

I love thee freely, as men strive for right;

I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.

I love thee with the passion put to use

In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.

I love thee with a love I seemed to lose

With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath,

Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,

I shall but love thee better after death.

At Last

Listen to:

At Last (1:10)

by Christina Rossetti 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

Many have sung of love a root of bane:
       While to my mind a root of balm it is,
    For love at length breeds love; sufficient bliss
For life and death and rising up again.
Surely when light of Heaven makes all things plain,
    Love will grow plain with all its mysteries;
    Nor shall we need to fetch from over seas
Wisdom or wealth or pleasure safe from pain.
Love in our borders, love within our heart,
    Love all in all, we then shall bide at rest,
    Ended for ever life’s unending quest,
         Ended for ever effort, change and fear:
Love all in all; —no more that better part
         Purchased, but at the cost of all things here.

Aware

Listen to:

Aware (:41)

by David Herbert Lawrence 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

Slowly the moon is rising out of the ruddy haze,
Divesting herself of her golden shift, and so
Emerging white and exquisite; and I in amaze
See in the sky before me, a woman I did not know
I loved, but there she goes and her beauty hurts my heart;
I follow her down the night, begging her not to depart.

  

Of the Last Verses in the Book

Listen to:

Of the Last Verses in the Book (1:25)

by Edmund Waller 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

Edmund Waller was born this day in 1606

When we for age could neither read nor write,

The subject made us able to indite.

The soul, with nobler resolutions deckt,

The body stooping, does herself erect:

No mortal parts are requisite to raise

Her, that unbodied can her Maker praise.

The seas are quiet, when the winds give o’er,

So calm are we, when passions are no more:

For then we know how vain it was to boast

Of fleeting things, so certain to be lost.

Clouds of affection from our younger eyes

Conceal that emptiness, which age descries.

The soul’s dark cottage, batter’d and decay’d,

Lets in new light through chinks that time has made;

Stronger by weakness, wiser men become

As they draw near to their eternal home:

Leaving the old, both worlds at once they view,

That stand upon the threshold of the new.

Love’s Secret

Pablo Picasso "The Lovers"

Listen to:

Love’s Secret (:47)

by William Blake 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

Never seek to tell thy love,   

  Love that never told can be;   

For the gentle wind doth move   

  Silently, invisibly.   

  

I told my love, I told my love,

  I told her all my heart,   

Trembling, cold, in ghastly fears.   

  Ah! she did depart!   

  

Soon after she was gone from me,   

  A traveller came by,

Silently, invisibly:   

  He took her with a sigh.

March

Listen to:

March (:38)

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

In ancient Rome, March was the first month of the year until Numa, second king of Rome, changed the beginning of the year to January around 700 B. C.

I Martius am! Once first, and now the third!
To lead the Year was my appointed place;
A mortal dispossessed me by a word,
And set there Janus with the double face.
Hence I make war on all the human race;
I shake the cities with my hurricanes;
I flood the rivers and their banks efface,
And drown the farms and hamlets with my rains.

from The Poet's Calendar