Nature

Listen to:

Nature (:56)

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

      As a fond mother when the day is o'er

      Leads by the hand her little child to bed,

      Half willing, half reluctant to be led,

      And leave his broken playthings on the floor,

      Still gazing at them through the open door,

      Nor wholly reassured and comforted

      By promises of others in their stead

      Which, though more splendid, may not please him more.

      So Nature deals with us and takes away

      Our playthings one by one, and by the hand

      Leads us to rest so gently, that we go,

      Scarce knowing if we wished to go or stay,

      Being too full of sleep to understand

      How far the unknown transcends the what we know.

The Lighted Window

Listen to:

The Lighted Window (1:21)

by Sara Teasdale 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

He said:
“In the winter dusk
When the pavements were gleaming with rain,
I walked thru a dingy street
Hurried, harassed,
Thinking of all my problems that never are solved.
Suddenly out of the mist, a flaring gas-jet
Shone from a huddled shop.
I saw thru the bleary window
A mass of playthings:
False-faces hung on strings,
Valentines, paper and tinsel,
Tops of scarlet and green,
Candy, marbles, jacks—
A confusion of color
Pathetically gaudy and cheap.
All of my boyhood
Rushed back.
Once more these things were treasures
Wildly desired.
With covetous eyes I looked again at the marbles,
The precious agates, the pee-wees, the chinies—
Then I passed on.

In the winter dusk,
The pavements were gleaming with rain;
There in the lighted window
I left my boyhood.”

Winter-Time

Listen to:

Winter-Time (1:08)

by Robert Louis Stevenson 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

Late lies the wintry sun a-bed, 

A frosty, fiery sleepy-head; 

Blinks but an hour or two; and then, 

A blood-red orange, sets again. 



Before the stars have left the skies, 

At morning in the dark I rise; 

And shivering in my nakedness, 

By the cold candle, bathe and dress. 



Close by the jolly fire I sit 

To warm my frozen bones a bit; 

Or with a reindeer-sled, explore 

The colder countries round the door. 



When to go out, my nurse doth wrap 

Me in my comforter and cap; 

The cold wind burns my face, and blows 

Its frosty pepper up my nose. 



Black are my steps on silver sod; 

Thick blows my frosty breath abroad; 

And tree and house, and hill and lake, 

Are frosted like a wedding cake.

I Remember, I Remember

Listen to:

I Remember, I Remember (1:19)

by Thomas Hood

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

I remember, I remember,
The house where I was born,
The little window where the sun
Came peeping in at morn;
He never came a wink too soon,
Nor brought too long a day,
But now, I often wish the night
Had borne my breath away!

I remember, I remember,
The roses, red and white,
The vi'lets, and the lily-cups,
Those flowers made of light!
The lilacs where the robin built,
And where my brother set
The laburnum on his birthday,—
The tree is living yet!

I remember, I remember,
Where I was used to swing,
And thought the air must rush as fresh
To swallows on the wing;
My spirit flew in feathers then,
That is so heavy now,
And summer pools could hardly cool
The fever on my brow!

I remember, I remember,
The fir trees dark and high;
I used to think their slender tops
Were close against the sky:
It was a childish ignorance,
But now 'tis little joy
To know I'm farther off from heav'n
Than when I was a boy.

luburnum — noun

any of several small trees belonging to the genus Laburnum, of the legume family, having elongated clusters of pendulous yellow flowers, especially L. alpinum, the Scotch laburnum.

To a Dog

Listen to:

To a Dog (1:00)

by John Jay Chapman

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

Past happiness dissolves. It fades away, 

Ghost-like, in that dim attic of the mind 

To which the dreams of childhood are consigned. 

Here, withered garlands hang in slow decay, 

And trophies glimmer in the dying ray 

Of stars that once with heavenly glory shined. 

But you, old friend, are you still left behind 

To tell the nearness of life's yesterday? 

Ah, boon companion of my vanished boy, 

For you he lives; in every sylvan walk 

He waits; and you expect him everywhere. 

How would you stir, what cries, what bounds of joy, 

If but his voice were heard in casual talk, 

If but his footstep sounded on the stair! 

I Am

Listen to:

I Am (1:18)

by John Clare

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

 I am—yet what I am none cares or knows;
My friends forsake me like a memory lost:
I am the self-consumer of my woes—
They rise and vanish in oblivious host,
Like shadows in love’s frenzied stifled throes
And yet I am, and live—like vapours tossed

Into the nothingness of scorn and noise,
Into the living sea of waking dreams,
Where there is neither sense of life or joys,
But the vast shipwreck of my life’s esteems;
Even the dearest that I loved the best
Are strange—nay, rather, stranger than the rest.

I long for scenes where man hath never trod
A place where woman never smiled or wept
There to abide with my Creator, God,
And sleep as I in childhood sweetly slept,
Untroubling and untroubled where I lie
The grass below—above the vaulted sky.

Grass

Listen to:

Grass (2:36)

by Walt Whitman

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

A child said What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands;

How could I answer the child? I do not know what it is any more than he.

I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful green

    stuff woven.

Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord,

A scented gift and remembrancer designedly dropt,

Bearing the owner's name someway in the corners, that we may see

    and remark, and say Whose?

Or I guess the grass is itself a child, the produced babe of the vegetation.

Or I guess it is a uniform hieroglyphic,

And it means, Sprouting alike in broad zones and narrow zones,

Growing among black folks as among white,

Kanuck, Tuckahoe, Congressman, Cuff, I give them the same,

I receive them the same.

And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves.

Tenderly will I use you curling grass,

It may be you transpire from the breasts of young men,

It may be if I had known them I would have loved them,

It may be you are from old people, or from offspring taken soon out

    of their mothers' laps,

And here you are the mothers' laps.

This grass is very dark to be from the white heads of old mothers,

Darker than the colorless beards of old men,

Dark to come from under the faint red roofs of mouths.

O I perceive after all so many uttering tongues,

And I perceive they do not come from the roofs of mouths for nothing.

I wish I could translate the hints about the dead young men and women,

And the hints about old men and mothers, and the offspring taken

    soon out of their laps.

What do you think has become of the young and old men?

And what do you think has become of the women and children?

They are alive and well somewhere,

The smallest sprout shows there is really no death,

And if ever there was it led forward life, and does not wait at the

    end to arrest it,

And ceas'd the moment life appear'd.

All goes onward and outward, nothing collapses,

And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier.

Apostrophe to the Ocean

Listen to:

Apostrophe to the Ocean (1:36)

by George Gordon, Lord Byron

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

    There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,

    There is a rapture on the lonely shore,

    There is society, where none intrudes,

    By the deep sea, and music in its roar;

    I love not man the less, but nature more,

    From these our interviews, in which I steal

    From all I may be, or have been before,

    To mingle with the universe, and feel

  What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal.

    Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean--roll!

    Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain;

    Man marks the earth with ruin--his control

    Stops with the shore; upon the watery plain

    The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain

    A shadow of man's ravage, save his own,

    When, for a moment, like a drop of rain,

    He sinks into thy depths, with bubbling groan--

  Without a grave, unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown.

And I have loved thee, Ocean! and my joy

    Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be

    Borne, like thy bubbles, onward: from a boy

    I wantoned with thy breakers--they to me

    Were a delight; and if the freshening sea

    Made them a terror--'twas a pleasing fear;

    For I was as it were a child of thee,

    And trusted to thy billows far and near,

  And laid my hand upon thy mane--as I do here.

A Narrow Fellow in the Grass

Listen to:

A Narrow Fellow in the Grass (:52)

by Emily Dickinson

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

A narrow fellow in the grass

Occasionally rides;

You may have met him, — did you not,

His notice sudden is.

The grass divides as with a comb,

A spotted shaft is seen;

And then it closes at your feet

And opens further on.

He likes a boggy acre,

A floor too cool for corn.

Yet when a child, and barefoot,

I more than once, at morn,

Have passed, I thought, a whip-lash

Unbraiding in the sun, —

When, stooping to secure it,

It wrinkled, and was gone.

Several of nature's people

I know, and they know me;

I feel for them a transport

Of cordiality;

But never met this fellow,

Attended or alone,

Without a tighter breathing,

And zero at the bone.

The Fly

Listen to:

The Fly (:32)

by William Blake

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

Little fly,

Thy summer’s play

My thoughtless hand

Has brushed away.

Am not I

A fly like thee?

Or art not thou

A man like me?

For I dance

And drink and sing,

Till some blind hand

Shall brush my wing.

If thought is life

And strength and breath,

And the want

Of thought is death,

Then am I

A happy fly,

If I live,

Or if I die.

My Heart Leaps Up

Listen to:

My Heart Leaps Up (:23)

by William Wordsworth

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

My heart leaps up when I behold

A rainbow in the sky. 

So was it when my life began;

So is it now I am a man;

So be it when I grow old,

Or let me die!

The Child is father of the Man;

And I could wish my days to be

Bound each to each by natural piety.