The Invitation

Listen to:

The Invitation (1:16)

by John Clare 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

  Come hither, my dear one, my choice one, and rare one,
  And let us be walking the meadows so fair,
  Where on pilewort and daisies the eye fondly gazes,
  And the wind plays so sweet in thy bonny brown hair.

  Come with thy maiden eye, lay silks and satins by;
  Come in thy russet or grey cotton gown;
  Come to the meads, dear, where flags, sedge, and reeds appear,
  Rustling to soft winds and bowing low down.

  Come with thy parted hair, bright eyes, and forehead bare;
  Come to the whitethorn that grows in the lane;
  To banks of primroses, where sweetness reposes,
  Come, love, and let us be happy again.

  Come where the violet flowers, come where the morning showers
  Pearl on the primrose and speedwell so blue;
  Come to that clearest brook that ever runs round the nook
  Where you and I pledged our first love so true.

January

Listen to:

January (1:03)

by Cornelius Webb 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

Cold January comes in Winter's car,

Thick hung with icicles-its heavy wheels

Cumbered with clogging snow, which cracks and peels

With its least motion or concussive jar

'Gainst hard hid ruts, or hewn trees buried far

In the heaped whiteness which awhile conceals

The green and pastoral earth. Old Christmas feels,-

That well-fed and wine-reeling wassailer,-

With all his feasts and fires, feels cold and shivers,

And the red runnel of his indolent blood

Creeps slow and curdled as a northern flood.

And lakes and winter-rills, impetuous rivers

And headlong cataracts, are in silence bound,

Like trammelled tigers lashed to th'unyielding ground.

When I Was One and Twenty

Listen to:

When I Was One and Twenty (:57)

by A.E. Housman

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

When I was one-and-twenty

  I heard a wise man say,

‘Give crowns and pounds and guineas

  But not your heart away;


Give pearls away and rubies
     
  But keep your fancy free.

But I was one-and-twenty,

  No use to talk to me.


When I was one-and-twenty

  I heard him say again,
     
‘The heart out of the bosom

  Was never given in vain;

’Tis paid with sighs a plenty

  And sold for endless rue.’

And I am two-and-twenty,
     
  And oh, ’tis true, ’tis true.

The Invitation

Listen to:

The Invitation (3:28)

by Percy Bysshe Shelley

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

Best and brightest, come away!
Fairer far than this fair Day,
Which, like thee to those in sorrow,
Comes to bid a sweet good-morrow
To the rough Year just awake
In its cradle on the brake.
The Brightest hour of unborn Spring,
Through the winter wandering,
Found, it seems, the halcyon Morn
To hoar February born.
Bending from Heaven, in azure mirth,
It kissed the forehead of the Earth,
And smiled upon the silent sea,
And bade the frozen streams be free,
And waked to music all their fountains,
And breathed upon the frozen mountains,
And like a prophetess of May
Strewed flowers upon the barren way,
Making the wintry world appear
Like one on whom thou smilest, dear.
Away, away, from men and towns,
To the wild wood and the downs—
To the silent wilderness
Where the soul need not repress
Its music lest it should not find
An echo in another’s mind.
While the touch of Nature’s art
Harmonizes heart to heart.
I leave this notice on my door
For each accustomed visitor:—
“I am gone into the fields
To take what this sweet hour yields;—
Reflection, you may come tomorrow,
Sit by the fireside with Sorrow.—
You with the unpaid bill, Despair,—
You, tiresome verse-reciter, Care,—
I will pay you in the grave,—
Death will listen to your stave.
Expectation too, be off!
Today is for itself enough;
Hope, in pity mock not Woe
With smiles, nor follow where I go;
Long having lived on thy sweet food,
At length I find one moment’s good
After long pain—with all your love,
This you never told me of.”

Radiant Sister of the Day,
Awake! arise! And come away!
To the wild woods and the plains,
And the pools where winter rains
Image all their roof of leaves,
Where the pine its garland weaves
Of sapless green, and ivy dun
Round stems that never kiss the sun:
Where the lawns and pastures be,
And the sandhills of the sea:—
Where the melting hoar-frost wets
The daisy-star that never sets,
And wind-flowers, and violets,
Which yet join not scent to hue,
Crown the pale year weak and new;
When the night is left behind
In the deep east, dun and blind,
And the blue noon is over us,
And the multitudinous
Billows murmur at our feet,
Where the earth and ocean meet,
And all things seem only one
In the universal sun.

A Contemplation Upon Flowers

Listen to:

A Contemplation Upon Flowers (1:24)

by Henry King

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

Brave flowers--that I could gallant it like you,
And be as little vain!
You come abroad, and make a harmless show,
And to your beds of earth again.
You are not proud: you know your birth:
For your embroider'd garments are from earth.

You do obey your months and times, but I
Would have it ever Spring:
My fate would know no Winter, never die,
Nor think of such a thing.
O that I could my bed of earth but view
And smile, and look as cheerfully as you!

O teach me to see Death and not to fear,
But rather to take truce!
How often have I seen you at a bier,
And there look fresh and spruce!
You fragrant flowers! then teach me, that my breath
Like yours may sweeten and perfume my death.

My Mind to Me a Kingdom Is

Listen to:

My Mind to Me a Kingdom Is (2:52)

by Sir Edward Dyer

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

My mind to me a kingdom is;

  Such present joys therein I find,

That it excels all other bliss

  That earth affords or grows by kind:

Though much I want that most would have,        

Yet still my mind forbids to crave.

No princely pomp, no wealthy store,

  No force to win the victory,

No wily wit to salve a sore,

  No shape to feed a loving eye;        

To none of these I yield as thrall;

For why? my mind doth serve for all.

I see how plenty surfeits oft,

  And hasty climbers soon do fall;

I see that those which are aloft        

  Mishap doth threaten most of all:

They get with toil, they keep with fear:

Such cares my mind could never bear.

Content I live, this is my stay;

  I seek no more than may suffice;        

I press to bear no haughty sway;

  Look, what I lack my mind supplies.

Lo, thus I triumph like a king,

Content with that my mind doth bring.

Some have too much, yet still do crave;        

  I little have, and seek no more.

They are but poor, though much they have,

  And I am rich with little store;

They poor, I rich; they beg, I give;

They lack, I leave; they pine, I live.        

I laugh not at another’s loss,

  I grudge not at another’s gain;

No worldly waves my mind can toss;

  My state at one doth still remain:

I fear no foe, I fawn no friend;        

I loathe not life, nor dread my end.

Some weigh their pleasure by their lust,

  Their wisdom by their rage of will;

Their treasure is their only trust,

  A cloakèd craft their store of skill;        

But all the pleasure that I find

Is to maintain a quiet mind.

My wealth is health and perfect ease,

  My conscience clear my chief defence;

I neither seek by bribes to please,        

  Nor by deceit to breed offence:

Thus do I live; thus will I die;

Would all did so as well as I!

"Seasons Pursuing Each Other" - excerpt from Song of Myself

Listen to:

Seasons Pursuing Each Other (1:23)

by Walt Whitman

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

Seasons pursuing each other the plougher ploughs, the mower mows,

    and the winter-grain falls in the ground;

Off on the lakes the pike-fisher watches and waits by the hole in

    the frozen surface,

The stumps stand thick round the clearing, the squatter strikes deep

    with his axe,

Flatboatmen make fast towards dusk near the cotton-wood or pecan-trees,

Coon-seekers go through the regions of the Red river or through

    those drain'd by the Tennessee, or through those of the Arkansas,

Torches shine in the dark that hangs on the Chattahooche or Altamahaw,

Patriarchs sit at supper with sons and grandsons and great-grandsons

    around them,

In walls of adobie, in canvas tents, rest hunters and trappers after

    their day's sport,

The city sleeps and the country sleeps,

The living sleep for their time, the dead sleep for their time,

The old husband sleeps by his wife and the young husband sleeps by his wife;

And these tend inward to me, and I tend outward to them,

And such as it is to be of these more or less I am,

And of these one and all I weave the song of myself.

"Behold the Child"

Listen to:

"Behold the Child" - excerpt from Intimations of Immortality (4:06)

by William Wordworth

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

III

Behold the Child among his new-born blisses,     

A six years' darling of a pigmy size!           

See, where 'mid work of his own hand he lies,     

Fretted by sallies of his mother's kisses,   

With light upon him from his father's eyes!           

See, at his feet, some little plan or chart,   

Some fragment from his dream of human life,    

Shaped by himself with newly-learnèd art;         

    A wedding or a festival,   

    A mourning or a funeral;

        And this hath now his heart,  

    And unto this he frames his song:         

        Then will he fit his tongue      

To dialogues of business, love, or strife;    

        But it will not be long  

        Ere this be thrown aside,        

        And with new joy and pride   

The little actor cons another part; 

Filling from time to time his 'humorous stage'     

With all the Persons, down to palsied Age,           

That Life brings with her in her equipage;           

        As if his whole vocation           

        Were endless imitation.           

Sonnet: To the River Otter

Listen to:

Sonnet: To the River Otter

by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

performed by Bob Gonzalez

Sonnet: To the River Otter

by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Dear native brook! wild streamlet of the West!

How many various-fated years have passed,

What happy and what mournful hours, since last

I skimmed the smooth thin stone along thy breast,

Numbering its light leaps! Yet so deep impressed

Sink the sweet scenes of childhood, that mine eyes

I never shut amid the sunny ray,

But straight with all their tints thy waters rise,

Thy crossing plank, thy marge with willows grey,

And bedded sand that, veined with various dyes,

Gleamed through thy bright transparence! On my way,

Visions of childhood! oft have ye beguiled

Lone manhood's cares, yet waking fondest sighs:

Ah! that once more I were a careless child!