If —

Listen to:

If — (2:06)

by Rudyard Kipling 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too:
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream---and not make dreams your master;
If you can think---and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same:.
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build'em up with worn-out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings,
And never breathe a word about your loss:
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings---nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much:
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And---which is more---you'll be a Man, my son! 

Death

Listen to:

Death (2:07)

by Walt Whitman 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

from Song of Myself

49

And as to you Death, and you bitter hug of mortality, it is idle to

    try to alarm me.

To his work without flinching the accoucheur  comes,

I see the elder-hand pressing receiving supporting,

I recline by the sills of the exquisite flexible doors,

And mark the outlet, and mark the relief and escape.

And as to you Corpse I think you are good manure, but that does not

    offend me,

I smell the white roses sweet-scented and growing,

I reach to the leafy lips, I reach to the polish'd breasts of melons.

And as to you Life I reckon you are the leavings of many deaths,

(No doubt I have died myself ten thousand times before.)

I hear you whispering there O stars of heaven,

O suns--O grass of graves--O perpetual transfers and promotions,

If you do not say any thing how can I say any thing?

Of the turbid pool that lies in the autumn forest,

Of the moon that descends the steeps of the soughing twilight,

Toss, sparkles of day and dusk--toss on the black stems that decay

    in the muck,

Toss to the moaning gibberish of the dry limbs.

I ascend from the moon, I ascend from the night,

I perceive that the ghastly glimmer is noonday sunbeams reflected,

And debouch to the steady and central from the offspring great or small.

Mutation

Listen to:

Mutation (1:13)

by William Cullen Bryant 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

They talk of short-lived pleasure—be it so—
Pain dies as quickly: stern, hard-featured pain
Expires, and lets her weary prisoner go.
The fiercest agonies have shortest reign;
And after dreams of horror, comes again
The welcome morning with its rays of peace.
Oblivion, softly wiping out the stain,
Makes the strong secret pangs of shame to cease:
Remorse is virtue’s root; its fair increase
Are fruits of innocence and blessedness:
Thus joy, o’erborne and bound, doth still release
His young limbs from the chains that round him press.
Weep not that the world changes—did it keep
A stable changeless state, ’twere cause indeed to weep.

What the Thrush Said

Wood Thrush photo by Bob Gress birdsinfocus.com

Listen to:

What the Thrush Said (1:02)

by John Keats 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

O Thou whose face hath felt the Winter’s wind,
Whose eye has seen the snow-clouds hung in mist,
And the black elm tops ’mong the freezing stars,
To thee the spring will be a harvest-time.
O thou, whose only book has been the light
Of supreme darkness which thou feddest on
Night after night when Phœbus was away,
To thee the Spring shall be a triple morn.
O fret not after knowledge—I have none,
And yet my song comes native with the warmth.
O fret not after knowledge—I have none,
And yet the Evening listens. He who saddens
At the thought of idleness cannot be idle,
And he’s awake who thinks himself asleep.

A Sailor’s Rhyme

Listen to:

A Sailor’s Rhyme (:56)

by Robert Louis Stevenson 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

The wind blew shrill and smart,
And the wind awoke my heart
Again to go a-sailing o'er the sea,
To hear the cordage moan
And the straining timbers groan,
And to see the flying pennon lie a-lee.

O sailor of the fleet,
It is time to stir the feet!
It's time to man the dingy and to row!
It's lay your hand in mine
And it's empty down the wine,
And it's drain a health to death before we go!

To death, my lads, we sail;
And it's death that blows the gale
And death that holds the tiller as we ride.
For he's the king of all
In the tempest and the squall,
And the ruler of the Ocean wild and wide!

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!  

Invictus

Listen to:

Invictus (:55)

by William Ernest Henley 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

Out of the night that covers me,

      Black as the pit from pole to pole,

I thank whatever gods may be

      For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance

      I have not winced nor cried aloud.

Under the bludgeonings of chance

      My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears

      Looms but the Horror of the shade,

And yet the menace of the years

      Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,

      How charged with punishments the scroll,

I am the master of my fate,

      I am the captain of my soul.