Metaphysics

Listen to: 

Metaphysics (1:08)

by Oliver Herford 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

Why and Wherefore set out one day

       To hunt for a wild Negation.

They agreed to meet at a cool retreat

       On the Point of Interrogation.

But the night was dark and they missed their mark,

       And, driven well-nigh to distraction,

They lost their ways in a murky maze

       Of utter abstruse abstraction.

Then they took a boat and were soon afloat

       On a sea of Speculation,

But the sea grew rough, and their boat, though tough,

       Was split into an Equation.

As they floundered about in the waves of doubt

       Rose a fearful Hypothesis,

Who gibbered with glee as they sank in the sea,

       And the last they saw was this:

On a rock-bound reef of Unbelief

       There sat the wild Negation;

Then they sank once more and were washed ashore

       At the Point of Interrogation.

Richard Cory

Listen to:

Richard Cory (1:00)

by Edward Arlington Robinson 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

Whenever Richard Cory went down town, 

We people on the pavement looked at him: 

He was a gentleman from sole to crown, 

Clean favored, and imperially slim.

And he was always quietly arrayed,

And he was always human when he talked;

But still he fluttered pulses when he said, 

"Good-morning," and he glittered when he walked.

And he was rich, — yes, richer than a king, — 

And admirably schooled in every grace:

In fine, we thought that he was everything 

To make us wish that we were in his place.

So on we worked, and waited for the light,

And went without the meat, and cursed the bread; 

And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,

Went home and put a bullet through his head.

Excelsior

Listen to:

Excelsior (2:20)

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

The shades of night were falling fast,  

As through an Alpine village passed  

A youth, who bore, 'mid snow and ice,  

A banner with the strange device,  

        Excelsior!          

  

His brow was sad; his eye beneath,  

Flashed like a falchion from its sheath,  

And like a silver clarion rung  

The accents of that unknown tongue,  

        Excelsior!  

  

In happy homes he saw the light  

Of household fires gleam warm and bright;  

Above, the spectral glaciers shone,  

And from his lips escaped a groan,  

        Excelsior!  

  

"Try not the Pass!" the old man said;  

"Dark lowers the tempest overhead,  

The roaring torrent is deep and wide!"  

And loud that clarion voice replied,  

        Excelsior!  

  

"Oh, stay," the maiden said, "and rest  

Thy weary head upon this breast!"  

A tear stood in his bright blue eye,  

But still he answered, with a sigh,  

        Excelsior!  

  

"Beware the pine-tree's withered branch!  

Beware the awful avalanche!"  

This was the peasant's last Good-night,  

A voice replied, far up the height,  

        Excelsior!  

  

At break of day, as heavenward  

The pious monks of Saint Bernard  

Uttered the oft-repeated prayer,  

A voice cried through the startled air,  

        Excelsior!  

  

A traveller, by the faithful hound,  

Half-buried in the snow was found,  

Still grasping in his hand of ice  

That banner with the strange device,  

        Excelsior!  

  

There, in the twilight cold and gray,  

Lifeless, but beautiful, he lay,  

And from the sky, serene and far,  

A voice fell, like a falling star,  

        Excelsior!  

Old Chants

Listen to:

Old Chants (2:14)

by Walt Whitman 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

  An ancient song, reciting, ending,

  Once gazing toward thee, Mother of All,

  Musing, seeking themes fitted for thee,

  Accept me, thou saidst, the elder ballads,

  And name for me before thou goest each ancient poet.

  (Of many debts incalculable,

  Haply our New World's chieftest debt is to old poems.)

  Ever so far back, preluding thee, America,

  Old chants, Egyptian priests, and those of Ethiopia,

  The Hindu epics, the Grecian, Chinese, Persian,

  The Biblic books and prophets, and deep idyls of the Nazarene,

  The Iliad, Odyssey, plots, doings, wanderings of Eneas,

  Hesiod, Eschylus, Sophocles, Merlin, Arthur,

  The Cid, Roland at Roncesvalles, the Nibelungen,

  The troubadours, minstrels, minnesingers, skalds,

  Chaucer, Dante, flocks of singing birds,

  The Border Minstrelsy, the bye-gone ballads, feudal tales, essays, plays,

  Shakespere, Schiller, Walter Scott, Tennyson,

  As some vast wondrous weird dream-presences,

  The great shadowy groups gathering around,

  Darting their mighty masterful eyes forward at thee,

  Thou! with as now thy bending neck and head, with courteous hand

      and word, ascending,

  Thou! pausing a moment, drooping thine eyes upon them, blent

      with their music,

  Well pleased, accepting all, curiously prepared for by them,

  Thou enterest at thy entrance porch.

The Blind Men and the Elephant

Listen to:

The Blind Men and the Elephant (2:28)

 by John Godfrey Saxe

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

It was six men of Indostan
To learning much inclined,
Who went to see the Elephant
(Though all of them were blind),
That each by observation
Might satisfy his mind.

The First approach'd the Elephant,
And happening to fall
Against his broad and sturdy side,
At once began to bawl:
"God bless me! but the Elephant
Is very like a wall!"

The Second, feeling of the tusk,
Cried, -"Ho! what have we here
So very round and smooth and sharp?
To me 'tis mighty clear
This wonder of an Elephant
Is very like a spear!"

The Third approached the animal,
And happening to take
The squirming trunk within his hands,
Thus boldly up and spake:
"I see," quoth he, "the Elephant
Is very like a snake!"

The Fourth reached out his eager hand,
And felt about the knee.
"What most this wondrous beast is like
Is mighty plain," quoth he,
"'Tis clear enough the Elephant
Is very like a tree!"

The Fifth, who chanced to touch the ear,
Said: "E'en the blindest man
Can tell what this resembles most;
Deny the fact who can,
This marvel of an Elephant
Is very like a fan!"

The Sixth no sooner had begun
About the beast to grope,
Then, seizing on the swinging tail
That fell within his scope,
"I see," quoth he, "the Elephant
Is very like a rope!"

And so these men of Indostan
Disputed loud and long,
Each in his own opinion
Exceeding stiff and strong,
Though each was partly in the right,
And all were in the wrong!

MORAL. 

So oft in theologic wars,
The disputants, I ween,
Rail on in utter ignorance
Of what each other mean,
And prate about an Elephant
Not one of them has seen! 

La Belle Dame Sans Merci

Listen to: 

La Belle Dame Sans Merci (2:07)

by John Keats

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

Original version (1819)

Oh what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,

    Alone and palely loitering?

The sedge has withered from the lake,

    And no birds sing.

Oh what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,

    So haggard and so woe-begone?

The squirrel's granary is full,

    And the harvest's done.

I see a lily on thy brow,

    With anguish moist and fever-dew,

And on thy cheeks a fading rose

    Fast withereth too.

I met a lady in the meads,

    Full beautiful - a faery's child,

Her hair was long, her foot was light,

    And her eyes were wild.

I made a garland for her head,

    And bracelets too, and fragrant zone;

She looked at me as she did love,

    And made sweet moan.

I set her on my pacing steed,

    And nothing else saw all day long,

For sidelong would she bend, and sing

    A faery's song.

She found me roots of relish sweet,

    And honey wild, and manna-dew,

And sure in language strange she said -

    'I love thee true'.

She took me to her elfin grot,

    And there she wept and sighed full sore,

And there I shut her wild wild eyes

    With kisses four.

And there she lulled me asleep

    And there I dreamed - Ah! woe betide! -

The latest dream I ever dreamt

    On the cold hill side.

I saw pale kings and princes too,

    Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;

They cried - 'La Belle Dame sans Merci

    Hath thee in thrall!'

I saw their starved lips in the gloam,

    With horrid warning gaped wide,

And I awoke and found me here,

    On the cold hill's side.

And this is why I sojourn here

    Alone and palely loitering,

Though the sedge is withered from the lake,

    And no birds sing.