Bacchanalia

Listen to:

Bacchanalia (5:04)

by Matthew Arnold 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

I 

The evening comes, the fields are still. 

The tinkle of the thirsty rill, 

Unheard all day, ascends again; 

Deserted is the half-mown plain, 

Silent the swaths! the ringing wain, 

The mower's cry, the dog's alarms, 

All housed within the sleeping farms! 

The business of the day is done, 

The last belated gleaner gone. 

And from the thyme upon the height, 

And from the elder-blossom white 

And pale dog-roses in the hedge, 

And from the mint-plant in the sedge, 

In puffs of balm the night-air blows 

The perfume which the day forgoes. 

And on the pure horizon far, 

See, pulsing with the first-born star, 

The liquid sky above the hill! 

The evening comes, the fields are still. 

       Loitering and leaping, 

       With saunter, with bounds— 

       Flickering and circling 

       In files and in rounds— 

       Gaily their pine-staff green 

       Tossing in air, 

       Loose o'er their shoulders white 

       Showering their hair— 

       See! the wild Maenads 

       Break from the wood, 

       Youth and Iacchus 

       Maddening their blood. 

       See! through the quiet land 

       Rioting they pass— 

       Fling the fresh heaps about, 

       Trample the grass. 

       Tear from the rifled hedge 

       Garlands, their prize; 

       Fill with their sports the field, 

       Fill with their cries. 

       Shepherd, what ails thee, then? 

       Shepherd, why mute? 

       Forth with thy joyous song! 

       Forth with thy flute! 

       Tempts not the revel blithe? 

       Lure not their cries? 

       Glow not their shoulders smooth? 

       Melt not their eyes? 

       Is not, on cheeks like those, 

       Lovely the flush? 

       —Ah, so the quiet was! 

       So was the hush! 

II 

The epoch ends, the world is still. 

The age has talk'd and work'd its fill— 

The famous orators have shone, 

The famous poets sung and gone, 

The famous men of war have fought, 

The famous speculators thought, 

The famous players, sculptors, wrought, 

The famous painters fill'd their wall, 

The famous critics judged it all. 

The combatants are parted now— 

Uphung the spear, unbent the bow, 

The puissant crown'd, the weak laid low. 

And in the after-silence sweet, 

Now strifes are hush'd, our ears doth meet, 

Ascending pure, the bell-like fame 

Of this or that down-trodden name, 

Delicate spirits, push'd away 

In the hot press of the noon-day. 

And o'er the plain, where the dead age 

Did its now silent warfare wage— 

O'er that wide plain, now wrapt in gloom, 

Where many a splendour finds its tomb, 

Many spent fames and fallen mights— 

The one or two immortal lights 

Rise slowly up into the sky 

To shine there everlastingly, 

Like stars over the bounding hill. 

The epoch ends, the world is still. 

       Thundering and bursting 

       In torrents, in waves— 

       Carolling and shouting 

       Over tombs, amid graves— 

       See! on the cumber'd plain 

       Clearing a stage, 

       Scattering the past about, 

       Comes the new age. 

       Bards make new poems, 

       Thinkers new schools, 

       Statesmen new systems, 

       Critics new rules. 

       All things begin again; 

       Life is their prize; 

       Earth with their deeds they fill, 

       Fill with their cries. 

       Poet, what ails thee, then? 

       Say, why so mute? 

       Forth with thy praising voice! 

       Forth with thy flute! 

       Loiterer! why sittest thou 

       Sunk in thy dream? 

       Tempts not the bright new age? 

       Shines not its stream? 

       Look, ah, what genius, 

       Art, science, wit! 

       Soldiers like Caesar, 

       Statesmen like Pitt! 

       Sculptors like Phidias, 

       Raphaels in shoals, 

       Poets like Shakespeare— 

       Beautiful souls! 

       See, on their glowing cheeks 

       Heavenly the flush! 

       —Ah, so the silence was! 

       So was the hush! 

The world but feels the present's spell, 

The poet feels the past as well; 

Whatever men have done, might do, 

Whatever thought, might think it too. 

A Song of Joys

Listen to:

A Song of Joys (1:36)

by Walt Whitman 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

Walt Whitman was born this day is 1819 in West Hills, near Huntington, Long Island

  O to make the most jubilant song!

  Full of music--full of manhood, womanhood, infancy!

  Full of common employments--full of grain and trees.

  O for the voices of animals--O for the swiftness and balance of fishes!

  O for the dropping of raindrops in a song!

  O for the sunshine and motion of waves in a song!

 ….

  O to sail to sea in a ship!

  To leave this steady unendurable land,

  To leave the tiresome sameness of the streets, the sidewalks and the

      houses,

  To leave you O you solid motionless land, and entering a ship,

  To sail and sail and sail!

  O to have life henceforth a poem of new joys!

  To dance, clap hands, exult, shout, skip, leap, roll on, float on!

  To be a sailor of the world bound for all ports,

  A ship itself, (see indeed these sails I spread to the sun and air,)

  A swift and swelling ship full of rich words, full of joys.

May Song

Listen to:

May Song (1:18)

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

translated by A. S. Kline* 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

How sweetly Nature

Brightens round me!

How the sun’s shining!

How the fields gleam!

Blossoms are bursting

From every leaf,

Thousands of voices

From bushes beneath,

And joy and bliss

From every eye.

O Earth, O Sun!

O Joy, O Delight.

O Love, O Love!

So golden fair,

Like morning clouds

On the hillside there!

Your splendour blesses

The fields so fresh,

The whole wide world

In a blossoming mist.

O Darling, Darling,

How I love you!

How your eyes shine!

How you love too!

So the lark loves

Singing on high,

And flowers at dawn

The scented sky,

As I love you

With veins on fire,

You who give me

Youth, Joy, Desire

For new dances

New poetry.

Be happy forever,

As you love me!

The Galaxy

Listen to:

The Galaxy (1:01)

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

      Torrent of light and river of the air,

      Along whose bed the glimmering stars are seen

      Like gold and silver sands in some ravine

      Where mountain streams have left their channels bare!

      The Spaniard sees in thee the pathway, where

      His patron saint descended in the sheen

      Of his celestial armor, on serene

      And quiet nights, when all the heavens were fair.

      Not this I see, nor yet the ancient fable

      Of Phaeton's wild course, that scorched the skies

      Wherever the hoofs of his hot coursers trod;

      But the white drift of worlds o'er chasms of sable,

      The star-dust, that is whirled aloft and flies

      From the invisible chariot-wheels of God.

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?

Spring

Listen to:

Spring (:28)

by Robert Browning 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

from Pippa Passes, a drama 

    The year's at the spring
    And day's at the morn;
    Morning's at seven;
    The hillside's dew-pearled;
    The lark's on the wing;
    The snail's on the thorn:
    God's in His heaven—
    All's right with the world!

She Was a Phantom of Delight

Listen to:

She Was a Phantom of Delight (1:42)

by William Wordsworth 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

William Wordsworth was born this day in 1770

She was a Phantom of delight

When first she gleamed upon my sight;

A lovely Apparition, sent

To be a moment's ornament;

Her eyes as stars of Twilight fair;

Like Twilight's, too, her dusky hair;

But all things else about her drawn

From May-time and the cheerful Dawn;

A dancing Shape, an Image gay,

To haunt, to startle, and way-lay.

I saw her upon nearer view,

A Spirit, yet a Woman too!

Her household motions light and free,

And steps of virgin-liberty;

A countenance in which did meet

Sweet records, promises as sweet;

A Creature not too bright or good

For human nature's daily food;

For transient sorrows, simple wiles,

Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears, and smiles.

And now I see with eye serene

The very pulse of the machine;

A Being breathing thoughtful breath,

A Traveller between life and death;

The reason firm, the temperate will,

Endurance, foresight, strength, and skill;

A perfect Woman, nobly planned,

To warn, to comfort, and command;

And yet a Spirit still, and bright

With something of angelic light.

April

Listen to:

April (:37)

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

I open wide the portals of the Spring
To welcome the procession of the flowers,
With their gay banners, and the birds that sing
Their song of songs from their aerial towers.
I soften with my sunshine and my showers
The heart of earth; with thoughts of love I glide
Into the hearts of men; and with the Hours
Upon the Bull with wreathed horns I ride.

from The Poet's Calendar

Give Me the Splendid Silent Sun

Listen to:

Give Me the Splendid Silent Sun (1:20)

by Walt Whitman 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

Give me the splendid silent sun with all his beams full-dazzling,

Give me autumnal fruit ripe and red from the orchard,

Give me a field where the unmow'd grass grows,

Give me an arbor, give me the trellis'd grape,

Give me fresh corn and wheat, give me serene-moving animals teaching

    content,

Give me nights perfectly quiet as on high plateaus west of the

    Mississippi, and I looking up at the stars,

Give me odorous at sunrise a garden of beautiful flowers where I can

    walk undisturb'd,

Give me for marriage a sweet-breath'd woman of whom I should never tire,

Give me a perfect child, give me away aside from the noise of the

    world a rural domestic life,

Give me to warble spontaneous songs recluse by myself, for my own ears only,

Give me solitude, give me Nature, give me again O Nature your primal

    sanities!

Sonnets Are Full of Love

Listen to:

Sonnets Are Full of Love (1:11)

by Christina Rossetti 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

(For my wonderful mother, Cruz Gonzalez, née Mondello, on her 84th birthday)

Sonnets are full of love, and this my tome 

Has many sonnets: so here now shall be 

One sonnet more, a love sonnet, from me 

To her whose heart is my heart's quiet home, 

To my first Love, my Mother, on whose knee 

I learnt love-lore that is not troublesome; 

Whose service is my special dignity, 

And she my loadstar while I go and come 

And so because you love me, and because 

I love you, Mother, I have woven a wreath 

Of rhymes wherewith to crown your honoured name: 

In you not fourscore years can dim the flame 

Of love, whose blessed glow transcends the laws 

Of time and change and mortal life and death.

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.

The Railway Train

Listen to:

The Railway Train (:46)

by Emily Dickinson 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

I like to see it lap the miles,
And lick the valleys up,
And stop to feed itself at tanks;
And then, prodigious, step

Around a pile of mountains,
And, supercilious, peer
In shanties by the sides of roads;
And then a quarry pare

To fit its sides, and crawl between,
Complaining all the while
In horrid, hooting stanza;
Then chase itself down the hill

And neigh like Boanerges;
Then, punctual as a star,
Stop - docile and omnipotent -
At its own stable door. 

The Prairie Town

Listen to:

The Prairie Town (1:05)

by Helen Hooven Santmyer

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

Lovers of beauty laugh at this grey town,
     Where dust lies thick on ragged curb-side trees,
And compass-needle streets lead up and down
     And lose themselves in empty prairie seas.

Here is no winding scented lane, no hill
     Crowned with a steepled church, no garden wall
Of old grey stone where lilacs bloom, and fill
     The air with fragrance when the May rains fall.

But here is the unsoftened majesty
     Of the wide earth where all the wide streets end,
And from the dusty corner one may see
     The full moon rise, and flaming sun descend.

The long main street, whence farmers’ teams go forth,
Lies like an old sea road, star-pointed north.

To the Immortal Memory of the Halibut

Listen to:

To the Immortal Memory of the Halibut (1:47)

by William Cowper 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

To the Immortal Memory of the Halibut

on Which I Dined This Day

[Written in a letter to Unwin April 25, 1784.  Published by

     Johnson, 1824.]

Where hast thou floated, in what seas pursued

Thy pastime? when wast thou an egg new-spawn'd,

Lost in th' immensity of ocean's waste?

Roar as they might, the overbearing winds

That rock'd the deep, thy cradle, thou wast safe—

And in thy minikin and embryo state,

Attach'd to the firm leaf of some salt weed,

Didst outlive tempests, such as wrung and rack'd

The joints of many a stout and gallant bark,

And whelm'd them in the unexplor'd abyss.

Indebted to no magnet and no chart,

Nor under guidance of the polar fire,

Thou wast a voyager on many coasts,

Grazing at large in meadows submarine,

Where flat Batavia just emerging peeps

Above the brine,—where Caledonia's rocks

Beat back the surge,—and where Hibernia shoots

Her wondrous causeway far into the main.

—Wherever thou hast fed, thou little thought'st,

And I not more, that I should feed on thee.

Peace therefore, and good health, and much good fish,

To him who sent thee! and success, as oft

As it descends into the billowy gulph,

To the same drag that caught thee!—Fare thee well!

Thy lot thy brethern of the slimy fin

Would envy, could they know that thou wast doom'd

To feed a bard, and to be prais'd in verse.

A Prairie Sunset

Listen to:

A Prairie Sunset (:49)

by Walt Whitman 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

  Shot gold, maroon and violet, dazzling silver, emerald, fawn,

  The earth's whole amplitude and Nature's multiform power consign'd

      for once to colors;

  The light, the general air possess'd by them--colors till now unknown,

  No limit, confine--not the Western sky alone--the high meridian--

      North, South, all,

  Pure luminous color fighting the silent shadows to the last.

Inscription on the Monument of a Newfoundland Dog

Listen to:

Inscription on the Monument of a Newfoundland Dog (1:52)

by George Gordon, Lord Byron 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

A Memorial to Boatswain

Newstead Abbey, November 30, 1808.

Near this spot

Are deposited the Remains of one

Who possessed Beauty without Vanity,

Strength without Insolence,

Courage without Ferocity,

And all the Virtues of Man without his Vices.

This Praise, which would be unmeaning Flattery

If inscribed over human ashes,

Is but a just tribute to the Memory of

BOATSWAIN, a DOG

Who was born at Newfoundland, May, 1803,

And died at Newstead, Nov 18th, 1808.

When some proud son of man returns to earth,

Unknown to glory, but upheld by birth,

The sculptor's art exhausts the pomp of woe,

And storied urns record who rest below:

When all is done, upon the tomb is seen,

Not what he was, but what he should have been:

But the poor dog, in life the firmest friend,

The first to welcome, foremost to defend,

Whose honest heart is still his master's own,

Who labours, fights, lives, breathes for him alone,

Unhonour'd falls, unnoticed all his worth,

Denied in heaven the soul he held on earth:

While man, vain insect!  hopes to be forgiven,

And claims himself a sole exclusive heaven.

Oh man! thou feeble tenant of an hour,

Debased by slavery, or corrupt by power,

Who knows thee well must quit thee with disgust,

Degraded mass of animated dust!

Thy love is lust, thy friendship all a cheat,

Thy smiles hypocrisy, thy words deceit!

By nature vile, ennobled but by name,

Each kindred brute might bid thee blush for shame.

Ye! who perchance behold this simple urn,

Pass on --- it honours none you wish to mourn:

To mark a friend's remains these stones arise;

I never knew but one, --- and here he lies.

At Home from Church

Listen to: 

At Home from Church (1:19)

by Sarah Orne Jewett 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

The lilacs lift in generous bloom

   Their plumes of dear old-fashioned flowers;

Their fragrance fills the still old house

   Where left alone I count the hours.

High in the apple-trees the bees

   Are humming, busy in the sun,—

An idle robin cries for rain

   But once or twice and then is done.

The Sunday-morning quiet holds

   In heavy slumber all the street,

While from the church, just out of sight

   Behind the elms, comes slow and sweet

The organ’s drone, the voices faint

   That sing the quaint long-meter hymn—

I somehow feel as if shut out

   From some mysterious temple, dim

And beautiful with blue and red

   And golden lights from windows high,

Where angels in the shadows stand

   And earth seems very near the sky.

The day-dream fades—and so I try

   Again to catch the tune that brings

No thought of temple nor of priest,

   But only of a voice that sings.

Ring Out, Wild Bells

Listen to:

Ring Out, Wild Bells (1:46)

by Alfred, Lord Tennyson 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
   The flying cloud, the frosty light:
   The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,
   Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
   The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Ring out the grief that saps the mind
   For those that here we see no more;
   Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.

Ring out a slowly dying cause,
   And ancient forms of party strife;
   Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.

Ring out the want, the care, the sin,
   The faithless coldness of the times;
   Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes
But ring the fuller minstrel in.

Ring out false pride in place and blood,
   The civic slander and the spite;
   Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.

Ring out old shapes of foul disease;
   Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
   Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.

Ring in the valiant man and free,
   The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
   Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be.