I Love the Brooks

Listen to: 

I Love the Brooks (:41)

by William Wordsworth

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

Excerpt from Ode: Intimations of Immortality

I love the brooks which down their channels fret,           

Even more than when I tripp'd lightly as they; 

The innocent brightness of a new-born Day       

            Is lovely yet;           

The clouds that gather round the setting sun     

Do take a sober colouring from an eye  

That hath kept watch o'er man's mortality;       

Another race hath been, and other palms are won.           

Thanks to the human heart by which we live,    

Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears,       

To me the meanest flower that blows can give  

Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.      

Ode on Solitude

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Ode on Solitude (1:04)

by Alexander Pope

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

HAPPY the man, whose wish and care           

A few paternal acres bound,    

Content to breathe his native air          

            In his own ground.     

Whose herds with milk, whose fields with bread,               

Whose flocks supply him with attire; 

Whose trees in summer yield him shade,       

            In winter fire.  

Blest, who can unconcern’dly find     

Hours, days, and years, slide soft away                  

In health of body, peace of mind,        

            Quiet by day.  

Sound sleep by night; study and ease 

Together mix’d, sweet recreation,       

And innocence, which most does please                 

            With meditation.         

Thus let me live, unseen, unknown;    

Thus unlamented let me die;   

Steal from the world, and not a stone  

            Tell where I lie.                   

The Tiger

Listen to:

The Tiger (1:09)

by William Blake

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

Tiger, tiger, burning bright

In the forests of the night,

What immortal hand or eye

Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies

Burnt the fire of thine eyes?

On what wings dare he aspire?

What the hand dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder and what art

Could twist the sinews of thy heart?

And, when thy heart began to beat,

What dread hand and what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain?

In what furnace was thy brain?

What the anvil? what dread grasp

Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears,

And watered heaven with their tears,

Did He smile His work to see?

Did He who made the lamb make thee?

Tiger, tiger, burning bright

In the forests of the night,

What immortal hand or eye

Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

To Daffodils

Listen to:

To Daffodils (:42)

by Robert Herrick

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

Fair Daffodils, we weep to see

         You haste away so soon;

As yet the early-rising sun

         Has not attain'd his noon.

                        Stay, stay,

                Until the hasting day

                        Has run

                But to the even-song;

And, having pray'd together, we

Will go with you along.

We have short time to stay, as you,

         We have as short a spring;

As quick a growth to meet decay,

         As you, or anything.

                        We die

                As your hours do, and dry

                        Away,

                Like to the summer's rain;

Or as the pearls of morning's dew,

Ne'er to be found again.

Seize the Day

Listen to:

Ode 11 from Book 1

by Horace

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

Seek not to know, Leuconöe,

The death that waits both you and me –

            The gods forbid such quest;

Don’t go and talk with gypsies old,

And try to get your fortune told;

            Let’s take things for the best.

Perchance we long shall feel the blast,

Perhaps this wintry gale’s our last;

            Be wise, and drink—don’t bother;

E’en as we speak Time’s flying on,

So seize the day before it’s gone;

            We may not have another.

"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.