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.

The Fairies Dancing 1873

Listen to:

The Fairies Dancing (1:21)

by Walter de la Mare 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

Walter de la Mare was born this day in 1873

I heard along the early hills,

  Ere yet the lark was risen up,

Ere yet the dawn with firelight fills

  The night-dew of the bramble-cup,--

I heard the fairies in a ring

  Sing as they tripped a lilting round

Soft as the moon on wavering wing.

  The starlight shook as if with sound,

As if with echoing, and the stars

  Prankt their bright eyes with trembling gleams;

While red with war the gusty Mars

  Rained upon earth his ruddy beams.

He shone alone, low down the West,

  While I, behind a hawthorn-bush,

Watched on the fairies flaxen-tressed

  The fires of the morning flush.

Till, as a mist, their beauty died,

  Their singing shrill and fainter grew;

And daylight tremulous and wide

  Flooded the moorland through and through;

Till Urdon's copper weathercock

  Was reared in golden flame afar,

And dim from moonlit dreams awoke

  The towers and groves of Arroar.

Queen Mab

Painting by Johann Heinrich Fussli

Listen to:

Queen Mab (3:08)

by William Shakespeare  

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

William Shakespeare was most probably born this day in 1564
(inferred from his baptismal record April 26, 1564)

from Romeo and Juliet, Act I, scene iv

Romeo is on his way to crash the Capulet's party with a group of friends, including his best friend, Mercutio. They exchange this dialogue:

ROMEO

And we mean well in going to this mask;

But 'tis no wit to go.

MERCUTIO

Why, may one ask?

ROMEO

I dream'd a dream to-night.

MERCUTIO

And so did I.

ROMEO

Well, what was yours?

MERCUTIO

That dreamers often lie.

ROMEO

In bed asleep, while they do dream things true.

to which Mercutio answers:

MERCUTIO

O, then, I see Queen Mab hath been with you.

She is the fairies' midwife, and she comes

In shape no bigger than an agate-stone

On the fore-finger of an alderman,

Drawn with a team of little atomies

Athwart men's noses as they lie asleep;

Her wagon-spokes made of long spinners' legs,

The cover of the wings of grasshoppers,

The traces of the smallest spider's web,

The collars of the moonshine's watery beams,

Her whip of cricket's bone, the lash of film,

Her wagoner a small grey-coated gnat,

Not half so big as a round little worm

Prick'd from the lazy finger of a maid;

Her chariot is an empty hazel-nut

Made by the joiner squirrel or old grub,

Time out o' mind the fairies' coachmakers.

And in this state she gallops night by night

Through lovers' brains, and then they dream of love;

O'er courtiers' knees, that dream on court'sies straight,

O'er lawyers' fingers, who straight dream on fees,

O'er ladies ' lips, who straight on kisses dream,

Which oft the angry Mab with blisters plagues,

Because their breaths with sweetmeats tainted are:

Sometime she gallops o'er a courtier's nose,

And then dreams he of smelling out a suit;

And sometime comes she with a tithe-pig's tail

Tickling a parson's nose as a' lies asleep,

Then dreams he of another benefice:

Sometime she driveth o'er a soldier's neck,

And then dreams he of cutting foreign throats,

Of breaches, ambuscadoes, Spanish blades,

Of healths five-fathom deep; and then anon

Drums in his ear, at which he starts and wakes,

And being thus frighted swears a prayer or two

And sleeps again. This is that very Mab

That plats the manes of horses in the night,

And bakes the elflocks in foul sluttish hairs,

Which once untangled, much misfortune bodes:

This is the hag, when maids lie on their backs,

That presses them and learns them first to bear,

Making them women of good carriage:

This is she--

The Yak

Listen to:

The Yak (:43)

by Hilaire Belloc 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

The Yak

          As a friend to the children

                             commend me the Yak.

            You will find it exactly the thing:

          It will carry and fetch,

                        you can ride on its back,

          Or lead it about

            with a string.

          The Tartar who dwells on the plains of Thibet

            (A desolate region of snow)

          Has for centuries made it a nursery pet,

            And surely the Tartar should know!

          Then tell your papa where the Yak can be got,

            And if he is awfully rich

          He will buy you the creature--

          or else

                  he will not.

          (I cannot be positive which.)

In a Vale

Listen to:

In a Vale (1:23)

by Robert Frost 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

Robert Frost was born this day in 1874

    When I was young, we dwelt in a vale

    By a misty fen that rang all night,

    And thus it was the maidens pale

    I knew so well, whose garments trail

    Across the reeds to a window light.

    The fen had every kind of bloom,

    And for every kind there was a face,

    And a voice that has sounded in my room

    Across the sill from the outer gloom.

    Each came singly unto her place,

    But all came every night with the mist;

    And often they brought so much to say

    Of things of moment to which, they wist,

    One so lonely was fain to list,

    That the stars were almost faded away

    Before the last went, heavy with dew,

    Back to the place from which she came—

    Where the bird was before it flew,

    Where the flower was before it grew,

    Where bird and flower were one and the same.

    And thus it is I know so well

    Why the flower has odor, the bird has song.

    You have only to ask me, and I can tell.

    No, not vainly there did I dwell,

    Nor vainly listen all the night long.

from A Boy's Will

First published by David Nutt of London in 1913

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.

Why Should Your Fair Eyes

Listen to:

Why Should Your Fair Eyes (1:04)

by Michael Drayton  

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

Why should your fair eyes with such sovereign grace 

Disperse their rays on every vulgar spirit, 

Whilst I in darkness in the self-same place 

Get not one glance to recompense my merit? 

So doth the ploughman gaze the wandering star, 

And only rest contented with the light, 

That never learned what constellations are, 

Beyond the bent of his unknowing sight, 

O! why should beauty, custom to obey, 

To their gross sense apply herself so ill? 

Would God I were as ignorant as they, 

When I am made unhappy by my skill; 

Only compelled on this poor good to boast, 

Heavens are not kind to them that know them most. 

A Prairie Sunset

Listen to:

A Prairie Sunset (:49)

by Walt Whitman 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

  Shot gold, maroon and violet, dazzling silver, emerald, fawn,

  The earth's whole amplitude and Nature's multiform power consign'd

      for once to colors;

  The light, the general air possess'd by them--colors till now unknown,

  No limit, confine--not the Western sky alone--the high meridian--

      North, South, all,

  Pure luminous color fighting the silent shadows to the last.

Jack Frost

Listen to:

Jack Frost (1:36)

by Gabriel Setoun 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

The door was shut, as doors should be,

Before you went to bed last night;

Yet Jack Frost has got in, you see,

And left your window silver white.
He must have waited till you slept;

And not a single word he spoke,

But pencilled o'er the panes and crept

Away again before you woke.
And now you cannot see the hills

Nor fields that stretch beyond the lane;

But there are fairer things than these

His fingers traced on every pane.
Rocks and castles towering high;

Hills and dales, and streams and fields;

And knights in armor riding by,

With nodding plumes and shining shields.
And here are little boats, and there

Big ships with sails spread to the breeze;

And yonder, palm trees waving fair

On islands set in silver seas,
And butterflies with gauzy wings;

And herds of cows and flocks of sheep;

And fruit and flowers and all the things

You see when you are sound asleep.
For, creeping softly underneath

The door when all the lights are out,

Jack Frost takes every breath you breathe,

And knows the things you think about.
He paints them on the window-pane

In fairy lines with frozen steam;

And when you wake you see again

The lovely things you saw in dream.