From Fairest Creatures

Portrait of Sir John Scott

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From Fairest Creatures (1:06)

by William Shakespeare 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

Sonnet I

From fairest creatures we desire increase,

That thereby beauty's rose might never die,

But as the riper should by time decease,

His tender heir might bear his memory:

But thou contracted to thine own bright eyes,

Feed'st thy light's flame with self-substantial fuel,

Making a famine where abundance lies,

Thy self thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel:

Thou that art now the world's fresh ornament,

And only herald to the gaudy spring,

Within thine own bud buriest thy content,

And, tender churl, mak'st waste in niggarding:

Pity the world, or else this glutton be,

To eat the world's due, by the grave and thee.

How Can My Muse

Painting by Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema

Listen to:

How Can My Muse (1:03)

by William Shakespeare 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

XXXVIII.

How can my muse want subject to invent,

While thou dost breathe, that pour'st into my verse

Thine own sweet argument, too excellent

For every vulgar paper to rehearse?

O! give thy self the thanks, if aught in me

Worthy perusal stand against thy sight;

For who's so dumb that cannot write to thee,

When thou thy self dost give invention light?

Be thou the tenth Muse, ten times more in worth

Than those old nine which rhymers invocate;

And he that calls on thee, let him bring forth

Eternal numbers to outlive long date.

If my slight muse do please these curious days,

The pain be mine, but thine shall be the praise.

Fulfilment

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Fulfilment (1:00)

by Paul Laurence Dunbar 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

  I grew a rose once more to please mine eyes.

  All things to aid it--dew, sun, wind, fair skies--

  Were kindly; and to shield it from despoil,

  I fenced it safely in with grateful toil.

  No other hand than mine shall pluck this flower, said I,

  And I was jealous of the bee that hovered nigh.

  It grew for days; I stood hour after hour

  To watch the slow unfolding of the flower,

  And then I did not leave its side at all,

  Lest some mischance my flower should befall.

  At last, oh joy! the central petals burst apart.

  It blossomed--but, alas! a worm was at its heart!

Promise

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Promise (:53)

by Paul Laurence Dunbar 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

  I grew a rose within a garden fair,

  And, tending it with more than loving care,

  I thought how, with the glory of its bloom,

  I should the darkness of my life illume;

  And, watching, ever smiled to see the lusty bud

  Drink freely in the summer sun to tinct its blood.

  My rose began to open, and its hue

  Was sweet to me as to it sun and dew;

  I watched it taking on its ruddy flame

  Until the day of perfect blooming came,

  Then hasted I with smiles to find it blushing red--

  Too late! Some thoughtless child had plucked my rose and fled!

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."

If You Refuse Me Once

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If You Refuse Me Once (3:05)

by Sir John Suckling 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

Sir John Suckling was born this day in 1609 in Middlesex, England.

If you refuse me once, and think again,

            I will complain.

You are deceiv’d, love is no work of art,

            It must be got and born,

            Not made and worn,

By every one that hath a heart.

Or do you think they more than once can die,

            Whom you deny?

Who tell you of a thousand deaths a day,

            Like the old poets feign

            And tell the pain

They met, but in the common way?

Or do you think ’t too soon to yield,

            And quit the field?

Nor is that right, they yield that first entreat;

            Once one may crave for love,

            But more would prove

This heart too little, that too great.

Oh that I were all soul, that I might prove

      For you as fit a love

As you are for an angel; for I know,

None but pure spirits are fit loves for you.

You are all ethereal; there’s in you no dross,

      Nor any part that’s gross.

Your coarsest part is like a curious lawn,

The vestal relics for a covering drawn.

Your other parts, part of the purest fire

      That e’er Heav’n did inspire,

Makes every thought that is refin’d by it

A quintessence of goodness and of wit.

Thus have your raptures reach’d to that degree

      In love’s philosophy,

That you can figure to yourself a fire

Void of all heat, a love without desire.

Nor in divinity do you go less;

      You think, and you profess,

That souls may have a plenitude of joy,

Although their bodies meet not to employ.

But I must needs confess, I do not find

      The motions of my mind

So purified as yet, but at the best

My body claims in them an interest.

I hold that perfect joy makes all our parts

      As joyful as our hearts.

Our senses tell us, if we please not them,

Our love is but a dotage or a dream.

How shall we then agree? you may descend,

      But will not, to my end.

I fain would tune my fancy to your key,

But cannot reach to that obstructed way.

There rests but this, that whilst we sorrow here,

      Our bodies may draw near;

And, when no more their joys they can extend,

Then let our souls begin where they did end.

Remembrance of Things Past

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Remembrance of Things Past (:51)

by William Shakespeare

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

SONNET 30

When to the sessions of sweet silent thought

I summon up remembrance of things past,

I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,

And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste:

Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow,

For precious friends hid in death's dateless night,

And weep afresh love's long since cancelled woe,

And moan the expense of many a vanished sight:

Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,

And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er

The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan,

Which I new pay as if not paid before.

But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,

All losses are restor'd and sorrows end.

La Belle Dame Sans Merci

Listen to: 

La Belle Dame Sans Merci (2:07)

by John Keats

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

Original version (1819)

Oh what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,

    Alone and palely loitering?

The sedge has withered from the lake,

    And no birds sing.

Oh what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,

    So haggard and so woe-begone?

The squirrel's granary is full,

    And the harvest's done.

I see a lily on thy brow,

    With anguish moist and fever-dew,

And on thy cheeks a fading rose

    Fast withereth too.

I met a lady in the meads,

    Full beautiful - a faery's child,

Her hair was long, her foot was light,

    And her eyes were wild.

I made a garland for her head,

    And bracelets too, and fragrant zone;

She looked at me as she did love,

    And made sweet moan.

I set her on my pacing steed,

    And nothing else saw all day long,

For sidelong would she bend, and sing

    A faery's song.

She found me roots of relish sweet,

    And honey wild, and manna-dew,

And sure in language strange she said -

    'I love thee true'.

She took me to her elfin grot,

    And there she wept and sighed full sore,

And there I shut her wild wild eyes

    With kisses four.

And there she lulled me asleep

    And there I dreamed - Ah! woe betide! -

The latest dream I ever dreamt

    On the cold hill side.

I saw pale kings and princes too,

    Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;

They cried - 'La Belle Dame sans Merci

    Hath thee in thrall!'

I saw their starved lips in the gloam,

    With horrid warning gaped wide,

And I awoke and found me here,

    On the cold hill's side.

And this is why I sojourn here

    Alone and palely loitering,

Though the sedge is withered from the lake,

    And no birds sing.

The Sun Rising

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The Sun Rising (1:46)

by John Donne

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

        BUSY old fool, unruly Sun,

        Why dost thou thus,

Through windows, and through curtains, call on us ?

Must to thy motions lovers' seasons run ?

        Saucy pedantic wretch, go chide

        Late school-boys and sour prentices,

    Go tell court-huntsmen that the king will ride,

    Call country ants to harvest offices ;

Love, all alike, no season knows nor clime,

Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.

        Thy beams so reverend, and strong

        Why shouldst thou think ?

I could eclipse and cloud them with a wink,

But that I would not lose her sight so long.

        If her eyes have not blinded thine,

        Look, and to-morrow late tell me,

    Whether both th' Indias of spice and mine

    Be where thou left'st them, or lie here with me. 

Ask for those kings whom thou saw'st yesterday,

And thou shalt hear, "All here in one bed lay."

        She's all states, and all princes I ;

        Nothing else is ;

Princes do but play us ; compared to this,

All honour's mimic, all wealth alchemy.

        Thou, Sun, art half as happy as we,

        In that the world's contracted thus ;

    Thine age asks ease, and since thy duties be

    To warm the world, that's done in warming us.

Shine here to us, and thou art everywhere ;

This bed thy center is, these walls thy sphere.

My Love is Like to Ice

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My Love is Like to Ice (:54)

by Edmund Spenser

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

My love is like to ice, and I to fire:

How comes it then that this her cold so great

Is not dissolved through my so hot desire,

But harder grows the more I her entreat?

Or how comes it that my exceeding heat

Is not allayed by her heart-frozen cold,

But that I burn much more in boiling sweat,

And feel my flames augmented manifold?

What more miraculous thing may be told,

That fire, which all things melts, should harden ice,

And ice, which is congeal'd with senseless cold,

Should kindle fire by wonderful device?

Such is the power of love in gentle mind,

That it can alter all the course of kind.