This Living Hand

Listen to:

This Living Hand (:41)

 by John Keats 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

This living hand, now warm and capable

Of earnest grasping, would, if it were cold

And in the icy silence of the tomb,

So haunt thy days and chill thy dreaming nights

That thou wouldst wish thine own heart dry of blood

So in my veins red life might stream again,

And thou be conscience-calmed—see here it is—

I hold it towards you.

                                                 

Young Love

Listen to:

Young Love (1:35)

by Andrew Marvell 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

Andrew Marvell was born this day in 1621

Come, little infant, love me now,

   While thine unsuspected years

Clear thine agèd father’s brow

   From cold jealousy and fears.

Pretty, surely, ’twere to see

   By young love old time beguiled,

While our sportings are as free

   As the nurse’s with the child.

Common beauties stay fifteen;

   Such as yours should swifter move,

Whose fair blossoms are too green

   Yet for lust, but not for love.

Love as much the snowy lamb,

   Or the wanton kid, does prize,

As the lusty bull or ram,

   For his morning sacrifice.

Now then love me: time may take

   Thee before thy time away:

Of this need we’ll virtue make,

   And learn love before we may.

So we win of doubtful fate;

   And if good she to us meant,

We that good shall antedate,

   Or, if ill, that ill prevent.

Thus as kingdoms, frustrating

   Other titles to their crown,

In the cradle crown their king,

   So all foreign claims to drown,

So, to make all rivals vain,

   Now I crown thee with my love:

Crown me with thy love again,

   And we both shall monarchs prove.

Edward Fitzgerald, translator of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, was born this day in 1809

Listen to quatrains from Edward Fitzgerald's translation of Omar Khayyam on Eclectic Rhapsodics:

May 2, 2015

February 12, 2016

February 25, 2016

The Mystery

Listen to:

The Mystery (1:28)

by Paul Laurence Dunbar 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

I was not; now I am—a few days hence
I shall not be; I fain would look before
And after, but can neither do; some Power
Or lack of power says “no” to all I would.
I stand upon a wide and sunless plain,
Nor chart nor steel to guide my steps aright.
Whene’er, o’ercoming fear, I dare to move,
I grope without direction and by chance.
Some feign to hear a voice and feel a hand
That draws them ever upward thro’ the gloom.
But I—I hear no voice and touch no hand,
Tho’ oft thro’ silence infinite I list,
And strain my hearing to supernal sounds;
Tho’ oft thro’ fateful darkness do I reach,
And stretch my hand to find that other hand.
I question of th’ eternal bending skies
That seem to neighbor with the novice earth;
But they roll on, and daily shut their eyes
On me, as I one day shall do on them,
And tell me not the secret that I ask.