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.

Mezzo Cammin

Listen to:

Mezzo Cammin (1:05)

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

Half of my life is gone, and I have let 

   The years slip from me and have not fulfilled 

   The aspiration of my youth, to build 

   Some tower of song with lofty parapet. 

Not indolence, nor pleasure, nor the fret 

   Of restless passions that would not be stilled, 

   But sorrow, and a care that almost killed, 

   Kept me from what I may accomplish yet; 

Though, half-way up the hill, I see the Past 

   Lying beneath me with its sounds and sights,— 

   A city in the twilight dim and vast, 

With smoking roofs, soft bells, and gleaming lights,— 

   And hear above me on the autumnal blast 

   The cataract of Death far thundering from the heights.

Two Hymns to Love

Listen to:

Two Hymns to Love (1:04)

by Robert Herrick 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

A Short Hymn to Venus

Goddess, I do love a Girl

Ruby-lipp’d, and tooth’d with Pearl:

If so be, I may but prove

Lucky in the Maid I love:

I will promise there shall be

Myrtles offer’d up to Thee.

A Hymn to Venus and Cupid

Sea-born Goddess, let me be

By thy son thus grac'd, and thee;

That whene’er I woo, I find 

Virgins coy, but not unkind.

Let me, when I kiss a maid,

Taste her lips, so over-laid

With Love-syrup, that I may,

In your Temple, when I pray,

Kiss the Altar, and confess

There’s in love no bitterness.

The Last of April

"Raindrops Falling on Green Grasses" by Jennie Marie Schell

Listen to:

The Last of April (1:09)

by John Clare 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

Old April wanes, and her last dewy morn

Her death-bed steeps in tears:--to hail the May

New blooming blossoms 'neath the sun are born,

And all poor April's charms are swept away.

The early primrose, peeping once so gay,

Is now chok'd up with many a mounting weed,

And the poor violet we once admir'd

Creeps in the grass unsought for--flowers succeed,

Gaudy and new, and more to be desired,

And of the old the school-boy seemeth tired.

So with us all, poor April, as with thee!

Each hath his day;--the future brings my fears:

Friends may grow weary, new flowers rising be,

And my last end, like thine, be steep'd in tears.

Love of Nature

Listen to:

Love of Nature (1:38)

by John Clare 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

  I love thee, Nature, with a boundless love!
  The calm of earth, the storm of roaring woods!
  The winds breathe happiness where'er I rove!
  There's life's own music in the swelling floods!
  My heart is in the thunder-melting clouds,
  The snow-cap't mountain, and the rolling sea!
  And hear ye not the voice where darkness shrouds
  The heavens? There lives happiness for me!

  My pulse beats calmer while His lightnings play!
  My eye, with earth's delusions waxing dim,
  Clears with the brightness of eternal day!
  The elements crash round me! It is He!
  Calmly I hear His voice and never start.
  From Eve's posterity I stand quite free,
  Nor feel her curses rankle round my heart.

  Love is not here. Hope is, and at His voice—
  The rolling thunder and the roaring sea—
  My pulses leap, and with the hills rejoice;
  Then strife and turmoil are at end for me.
  No matter where life's ocean leads me on,
  For Nature is my mother, and I rest,
  When tempests trouble and the sun is gone,
  Like to a weary child upon her breast.

Cosmopolite

Georgia Douglas Johnson

Listen to:

Cosmopolite (:41)

by Georgia Douglas Johnson 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

Not wholly this or that,
But wrought
Of alien bloods am I,
A product of the interplay
Of traveled hearts.
Estranged, yet not estranged, I stand
All comprehending;
From my estate
I view earth’s frail dilemma;
Scion of fused strength am I,
All understanding,
Nor this nor that
Contains me.

Miracles

Listen to:

Miracles (1:52)

by Walt Whitman 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

Why, who makes much of a miracle?
As to me I know of nothing else but miracles,
Whether I walk the streets of Manhattan,
Or dart my sight over the roofs of houses toward the sky,
Or wade with naked feet along the beach just in the edge of the water,
Or stand under trees in the woods,
Or talk by day with any one I love, or sleep in the bed at night with any one I love,
Or sit at table at dinner with the rest,
Or look at strangers opposite me riding in the car,
Or watch honey-bees busy around the hive of a summer forenoon,
Or animals feeding in the fields,
Or birds, or the wonderfulness of insects in the air,
Or the wonderfulness of the sundown, or of stars shining so quiet and bright,
Or the exquisite delicate thin curve of the new moon in spring;
These with the rest, one and all, are to me miracles,
The whole referring, yet each distinct and in its place.

To me every hour of the light and dark is a miracle,
Every cubic inch of space is a miracle,
Every square yard of the surface of the earth is spread with the same,
Every foot of the interior swarms with the same.

To me the sea is a continual miracle,
The fishes that swim—the rocks—the motion of the waves—the ships with men in them,
What stranger miracles are there?

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.

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. 

Six Honest Serving Men

Listen to:

Six Honest Serving Men (1:03)

by Rudyard Kipling 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

I keep six honest serving-men

 (They taught me all I knew);

Their names are What and Why and When 

 And How and Where and Who.

I send them over land and sea,

 I send them east and west;

But after they have worked for me,

 I give them all a rest.

I let them rest from nine till five,

 For I am busy then,

As well as breakfast, lunch, and tea,

 For they are hungry men.

But different folk have different views; 

I know a person small—

She keeps ten million serving-men,

Who get no rest at all!

She sends 'em abroad on her own affairs,

 From the second she opens her eyes—

One million Hows, two million Wheres,

And seven million Whys!

from Kipling's Just-So Story,

The Elephant's Child 

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.

A Thrush in the Moonlight

Listen to:

A Thrush in the Moonlight (:53)

by Witter Bynner

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

In came the moon and covered me with wonder,
Touched me and was near me and made me very still.
In came a rush of song, like rain after thunder,
Pouring importunate on my window-sill.

I lowered my head, I hid it, I would not see nor hear,
The birdsong had stricken me, had brought the moon too near.
But when I dared to lift my head, night began to fill
With singing in the darkness. And then the thrush grew still.
  And the moon came in, and silence, on my window-sill.

To Anyone

Listen to:

To Anyone (:26)

by Witter Bynner

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

Whether the time be slow or fast,
  Enemies, hand in hand,
Must come together at the last
  And understand.
 
No matter how the die is cast      
  Nor who may seem to win,
You know that you must love at last—
  Why not begin?

The Fields

Listen to:

The Fields (:27)

by Witter Bynner

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

Though wisdom underfoot
  Dies in the bloody fields,
Slowly the endless root
  Gathers again and yields.
 
In fields where hate has hurled      
  Its force, where folly rots,
Wisdom shall be unfurled
  Small as forget-me-nots.

Childe Harold's Pilgrimage Canto I Part 4

Listen to:

Childe Harold's Pilgrimage Canto I Part 4 (3:13)

by George Gordon, Lord Byron

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

A few short hours, and he will rise

   To give the morrow birth;

And I shall hail the main and skies,

   But not my mother earth.

Deserted is my own good hall,

   Its hearth is desolate;

Wild weeds are gathering on the wall,

   My dog howls at the gate.

'Come hither, hither, my little page:

   Why dost thou weep and wail?

Or dost thou dread the billow's rage,

   Or tremble at the gale?

But dash the tear-drop from thine eye,

   Our ship is swift and strong;

Our fleetest falcon scarce can fly

   More merrily along.'

'Let winds be shrill, let waves roll high,

   I fear not wave nor wind;

Yet marvel not, Sir Childe, that I

   Am sorrowful in mind;

For I have from my father gone, 

   A mother whom I love,

And have no friend, save these alone,

   But thee--and One above.

'My father blessed me fervently,

   Yet did not much complain;

But sorely will my mother sigh

   Till I come back again.' -

'Enough, enough, my little lad!

   Such tears become thine eye;

If I thy guileless bosom had,

   Mine own would not be dry.

'Come hither, hither, my staunch yeoman,

   Why dost thou look so pale?

Or dost thou dread a French foeman,

   Or shiver at the gale?' -

'Deem'st thou I tremble for my life?

   Sir Childe, I'm not so weak;

But thinking on an absent wife

   Will blanch a faithful cheek.

'My spouse and boys dwell near thy hall,

   Along the bordering lake;

And when they on their father call,

   What answer shall she make?' -

'Enough, enough, my yeoman good,

   Thy grief let none gainsay;

But I, who am of lighter mood,

   Will laugh to flee away.'

For who would trust the seeming sighs

   Of wife or paramour?

Fresh feeres will dry the bright blue eyes

   We late saw streaming o'er.

For pleasures past I do not grieve,

   Nor perils gathering near;

My greatest grief is that I leave

   No thing that claims a tear.  

And now I'm in the world alone,

   Upon the wide, wide sea;

But why should I for others groan,

   When none will sigh for me?

Perchance my dog will whine in vain

   Till fed by stranger hands;

But long ere I come back again

   He'd tear me where he stands.

With thee, my bark, I'll swiftly go

   Athwart the foaming brine;

Nor care what land thou bear'st me to,

   So not again to mine.

Welcome, welcome, ye dark blue waves!

   And when you fail my sight,

Welcome, ye deserts, and ye caves!

   My Native Land--Good Night!

Childe Harold's Pilgrimage Canto I Part 3

Listen to:

Childe Harold's Pilgrimage Canto I Part 3 (1:59)

by George Gordon, Lord Byron

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

XI.

   His house, his home, his heritage, his lands,

   The laughing dames in whom he did delight,

   Whose large blue eyes, fair locks, and snowy hands,

   Might shake the saintship of an anchorite,

   And long had fed his youthful appetite;

   His goblets brimmed with every costly wine,

   And all that mote to luxury invite,     may, might

   Without a sigh he left to cross the brine,

And traverse Paynim shores, and pass earth's central line.    

XII.

   The sails were filled, and fair the light winds blew

   As glad to waft him from his native home;

   And fast the white rocks faded from his view,

   And soon were lost in circumambient foam;

   And then, it may be, of his wish to roam

   Repented he, but in his bosom slept

   The silent thought, nor from his lips did come

   One word of wail, whilst others sate and wept,

And to the reckless gales unmanly moaning kept.

XIII.

   But when the sun was sinking in the sea,

   He seized his harp, which he at times could string,

   And strike, albeit with untaught melody,

   When deemed he no strange ear was listening:

   And now his fingers o'er it he did fling,

   And tuned his farewell in the dim twilight,

   While flew the vessel on her snowy wing,

   And fleeting shores receded from his sight,

Thus to the elements he poured his last 'Good Night.'

Adieu, adieu! my native shore

   Fades o'er the waters blue;

The night-winds sigh, the breakers roar,

   And shrieks the wild sea-mew.      

Yon sun that sets upon the sea

   We follow in his flight;

Farewell awhile to him and thee,

   My Native Land--Good Night!  

Childe Harold's Pilgrimage Canto I Part 2

Listen to:

Childe Harold's Pilgrimage Canto I Part 2 (2:46)

by George Gordon, Lord Byron

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

VI.

   And now Childe Harold was sore sick at heart,

   And from his fellow bacchanals would flee;

   'Tis said, at times the sullen tear would start,

   But pride congealed the drop within his e'e:

   Apart he stalked in joyless reverie,

   And from his native land resolved to go,

   And visit scorching climes beyond the sea;

   With pleasure drugged, he almost longed for woe,

And e'en for change of scene would seek the shades below.

VII.

   The Childe departed from his father's hall;

   It was a vast and venerable pile;

   So old, it seemed only not to fall,

   Yet strength was pillared in each massy aisle.

   Monastic dome! condemned to uses vile!

   Where superstition once had made her den,

   Now Paphian girls were known to sing and smile;

   And monks might deem their time was come agen,

If ancient tales say true, nor wrong these holy men.

VIII.

   Yet ofttimes in his maddest mirthful mood,

   Strange pangs would flash along Childe Harold's brow,

   As if the memory of some deadly feud

   Or disappointed passion lurked below:

   But this none knew, nor haply cared to know;

   For his was not that open, artless soul

   That feels relief by bidding sorrow flow;

   Nor sought he friend to counsel or condole,

Whate'er this grief mote be, which he could not control.

IX.

   And none did love him:  though to hall and bower

   He gathered revellers from far and near,

   He knew them flatterers of the festal hour;

   The heartless parasites of present cheer.

   Yea, none did love him--not his lemans dear -  

   But pomp and power alone are woman's care,

   And where these are light Eros finds a feere;    

   Maidens, like moths, are ever caught by glare,

And Mammon wins his way where seraphs might despair.

X.

   Childe Harold had a mother--not forgot,

   Though parting from that mother he did shun;

   A sister whom he loved, but saw her not

   Before his weary pilgrimage begun:

   If friends he had, he bade adieu to none.

   Yet deem not thence his breast a breast of steel;

   Ye, who have known what 'tis to dote upon

   A few dear objects, will in sadness feel

Such partings break the heart they fondly hope to heal.

Childe Harold's Pilgrimage Canto I Part 1

Listen to:

Childe Harold's Pilgrimage Canto I Part 1 (2:48)

by George Gordon, Lord Byron

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

I.

   Oh, thou, in Hellas deemed of heavenly birth,
   Muse, formed or fabled at the minstrel's will!
   Since shamed full oft by later lyres on earth,
   Mine dares not call thee from thy sacred hill:
   Yet there I've wandered by thy vaunted rill;
   Yes! sighed o'er Delphi's long-deserted shrine
   Where, save that feeble fountain, all is still;
   Nor mote my shell awake the weary Nine
To grace so plain a tale--this lowly lay of mine.

II.

   Whilome in Albion's isle there dwelt a youth,
   Who ne in virtue's ways did take delight;
   But spent his days in riot most uncouth,
   And vexed with mirth the drowsy ear of Night.
   Ah, me! in sooth he was a shameless wight,
   Sore given to revel and ungodly glee;
   Few earthly things found favour in his sight
   Save concubines and carnal companie,
And flaunting wassailers of high and low degree.

III.

   Childe Harold was he hight: --but whence his name
   And lineage long, it suits me not to say;
   Suffice it, that perchance they were of fame,
   And had been glorious in another day:
   But one sad losel soils a name for aye,  
   However mighty in the olden time;
   Nor all that heralds rake from coffined clay,
   Nor florid prose, nor honeyed lines of rhyme,
Can blazon evil deeds, or consecrate a crime.


IV.

   Childe Harold basked him in the noontide sun,
   Disporting there like any other fly,
   Nor deemed before his little day was done  
   One blast might chill him into misery.
   But long ere scarce a third of his passed by,
   Worse than adversity the Childe befell;    
   He felt the fulness of satiety:
   Then loathed he in his native land to dwell,
Which seemed to him more lone than eremite's sad cell.

V.

   For he through Sin's long labyrinth had run,
   Nor made atonement when he did amiss,
   Had sighed to many, though he loved but one,
   And that loved one, alas, could ne'er be his.
   Ah, happy she! to 'scape from him whose kiss
   Had been pollution unto aught so chaste;
   Who soon had left her charms for vulgar bliss,
   And spoiled her goodly lands to gild his waste,
Nor calm domestic peace had ever deigned to taste.

Let Your Soul Stand Cool

Listen to:

Let Your Soul Stand Cool (1:06)

by Walt Whitman

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

from Song of Myself by Walt Whitman

   

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.