What Riches Have You

Listen to:

What Riches Have You (:59)

  by George Santayana  

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

SONNET 29

                                                            

What riches have you that you deem me poor,

Or what large comfort that you call me sad?

Tell me what makes you so exceeding glad:

Is your earth happy or your heaven sure?

I hope for heaven, since the stars endure

And bring such tidings as our fathers had.

I know no deeper doubt to make me mad,

I need no brighter love to keep me pure.

To me the faiths of old are daily bread;

I bless their hope, I bless their will to save,

 And my deep heart still meaneth what they said.

It makes me happy that the soul is brave,

And, being so much kinsman to the dead,

I walk contented to the peopled grave.

The Tide Rises, the Tide Falls

Listen to:

The Tide Rises, the Tide Falls (1:06)

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

  The tide rises, the tide falls,

  The twilight darkens, the curlew calls;

  Along the sea-sands damp and brown

  The traveller hastens toward the town,

    And the tide rises, the tide falls.

  Darkness settles on roofs and walls,

  But the sea in the darkness calls and calls;

  The little waves, with their soft, white hands,

  Efface the footprints in the sands,

    And the tide rises, the tide falls.

  The morning breaks; the steeds in their stalls

  Stamp and neigh, as the hostler calls;

  The day returns, but nevermore

  Returns the traveller to the shore,

    And the tide rises, the tide falls.

Love (I)

Listen to:

Love (I) (1:10)

by George Herbert 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

Immortal Love, author of this great frame,

      Sprung from that beauty which can never fade,

      How hath man parcel'd out Thy glorious name,

And thrown it on that dust which Thou hast made,

While mortal love doth all the title gain!

      Which siding with Invention, they together

      Bear all the sway, possessing heart and brain,

(Thy workmanship) and give Thee share in neither.

Wit fancies beauty, beauty raiseth wit;

      The world is theirs, they two play out the game,

      Thou standing by: and though Thy glorious name

Wrought our deliverance from th' infernal pit,

Who sings Thy praise? Only a scarf or glove

Doth warm our hands, and make them write of love.

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.

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.

Lucifer in Starlight

Listen to:

Lucifer in Starlight (1:01)

by George Meredith 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

  

On a starr'd night Prince Lucifer uprose.  

  Tired of his dark dominion swung the fiend  

  Above the rolling ball in cloud part screen'd,  

Where sinners hugg'd their spectre of repose.  

Poor prey to his hot fit of pride were those.          

  And now upon his western wing he lean'd,  

  Now his huge bulk o'er Afric's sands careen'd,  

Now the black planet shadow'd Arctic snows.  

Soaring through wider zones that prick'd his scars  

  With memory of the old revolt from Awe,  

He reach'd a middle height, and at the stars,  

Which are the brain of heaven, he look'd, and sank.  

Around the ancient track march'd, rank on rank,  

  The army of unalterable law.

Limitations

Listen to:

Limitations (1:01)

Henrietta Cordelia Ray 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

The subtlest strain a great musician weaves,
Cannot attain in rhythmic harmony
To music in his soul. May it not be
Celestial lyres send hints to him? He grieves
That half the sweetness of the song, he leaves
Unheard in the transition. Thus do we
Yearn to translate the wondrous majesty
Of some rare mood, when the rapt soul receives
A vision exquisite. Yet who can match
The sunset’s iridescent hues? Who sing
The skylark’s ecstasy so seraph-fine?
We struggle vainly, still we fain would catch
Such rifts amid life’s shadows, for they bring
Glimpses ineffable of things divine.

  

Fabliau of Florida

Listen to:

Fabliau of Florida (:38)

by Wallace Stevens 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

Barque of phosphor
On the palmy beach,

Move outward into heaven,
Into the alabasters
And night blues.

Foam and cloud are one.
Sultry moon-monsters
Are dissolving.

Fill your black hull
With white moonlight.

There will never be an end
To this droning of the surf.

Death Be Not Proud

Listen to:

Death Be Not Proud (1:17)

by John Donne

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

Death be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so,
For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poor death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.
Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,
And poppy, or charms can make us sleep as well,
And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.

Petals

Listen to:

Petals (:50)

by Amy Lowell

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

          Life is a stream

          On which we strew

          Petal by petal the flower of our heart;

          The end lost in dream,

          They float past our view,

          We only watch their glad, early start.

          Freighted with hope,

          Crimsoned with joy,

          We scatter the leaves of our opening rose;

          Their widening scope,

          Their distant employ,

          We never shall know.  And the stream as it flows

          Sweeps them away,

          Each one is gone

          Ever beyond into infinite ways.

          We alone stay

          While years hurry on,

          The flower fared forth, though its fragrance still stays.

The Fiddler of Dooney

Listen to:

The Fiddler of Dooney (:56)

by William Butler Yeats

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

When I play on my fiddle in Dooney,  

Folk dance like a wave of the sea;  

My cousin is priest in Kilvarnet,  

My brother in Moharabuiee.  

  

I passed my brother and cousin:          

They read in their books of prayer;  

I read in my book of songs  

I bought at the Sligo fair.  

  

When we come at the end of time,  

To Peter sitting in state,  

He will smile on the three old spirits,  

But call me first through the gate;  

  

For the good are always the merry,  

Save by an evil chance,  

And the merry love the fiddle  

And the merry love to dance:  

  

And when the folk there spy me,  

They will all come up to me,  

With ‘Here is the fiddler of Dooney!’  

And dance like a wave of the sea.  

The 90th Psalm, Versified

Listen to:

The 90th Psalm, Versified (1:24)

by Robert Burns

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

The First Six Verses Of The Ninetieth Psalm Versified

by Robert Burns

O Thou, the first, the greatest friend 

Of all the human race! 

Whose strong right hand has ever been 

Their stay and dwelling place! 

Before the mountains heav'd their heads 

Beneath Thy forming hand, 

Before this ponderous globe itself 

Arose at Thy command; 

That Pow'r which rais'd and still upholds 

This universal frame, 

From countless, unbeginning time 

Was ever still the same. 

Those mighty periods of years 

Which seem to us so vast, 

Appear no more before Thy sight 

Than yesterday that's past. 

Thou giv'st the word: Thy creature, man, 

Is to existence brought; 

Again Thou say'st, "Ye sons of men, 

Return ye into nought!" 

Thou layest them, with all their cares, 

In everlasting sleep; 

As with a flood Thou tak'st them off 

With overwhelming sweep. 

They flourish like the morning flow'r, 

In beauty's pride array'd; 

But long ere night cut down it lies 

All wither'd and decay'd.

One Day I Wrote Her Name

Listen to:

Sonnet 75 (1:03)

by Edmund Spenser

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

One day I wrote her name upon the strand,
But came the waves and washéd it away:
Again I wrote it with a second hand,
But came the tide, and made my pains his prey.
Vain man, said she, that dost in vain assay
A mortal thing so to immortalize!
For I myself shall like to this decay,
And eek my name be wipéd out likewise.
Not so (quoth I), let baser things devise
To die in dust, but you shall live by fame:
My verse your virtues rare shall eternize,
And in the heavens write your glorious name;
Where, whenas death shall all the world subdue,
Our love shall live, and later life renew.

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