Old Chants

Listen to:

Old Chants (2:14)

by Walt Whitman 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

  An ancient song, reciting, ending,

  Once gazing toward thee, Mother of All,

  Musing, seeking themes fitted for thee,

  Accept me, thou saidst, the elder ballads,

  And name for me before thou goest each ancient poet.

  (Of many debts incalculable,

  Haply our New World's chieftest debt is to old poems.)

  Ever so far back, preluding thee, America,

  Old chants, Egyptian priests, and those of Ethiopia,

  The Hindu epics, the Grecian, Chinese, Persian,

  The Biblic books and prophets, and deep idyls of the Nazarene,

  The Iliad, Odyssey, plots, doings, wanderings of Eneas,

  Hesiod, Eschylus, Sophocles, Merlin, Arthur,

  The Cid, Roland at Roncesvalles, the Nibelungen,

  The troubadours, minstrels, minnesingers, skalds,

  Chaucer, Dante, flocks of singing birds,

  The Border Minstrelsy, the bye-gone ballads, feudal tales, essays, plays,

  Shakespere, Schiller, Walter Scott, Tennyson,

  As some vast wondrous weird dream-presences,

  The great shadowy groups gathering around,

  Darting their mighty masterful eyes forward at thee,

  Thou! with as now thy bending neck and head, with courteous hand

      and word, ascending,

  Thou! pausing a moment, drooping thine eyes upon them, blent

      with their music,

  Well pleased, accepting all, curiously prepared for by them,

  Thou enterest at thy entrance porch.

Fabliau of Florida

Listen to:

Fabliau of Florida (:38)

by Wallace Stevens 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

Barque of phosphor
On the palmy beach,

Move outward into heaven,
Into the alabasters
And night blues.

Foam and cloud are one.
Sultry moon-monsters
Are dissolving.

Fill your black hull
With white moonlight.

There will never be an end
To this droning of the surf.

The Snow Man

Photo by Leonardo Valeri

Listen to:

The Snow Man (:56)

by Wallace Stevens 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;

And have been cold a long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitter

Of the January sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
In the sound of a few leaves,

Which is the sound of the land
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same bare place

For the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

To the Moon

Listen to:

To the Moon (1:03)

by Charlotte Smith 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

Queen of the silver bow!--by thy pale beam
Alone and pensive, I delight to stray,
And watch thy shadow trembling in the stream,
Or mark the floating clouds that cross thy way.
And while I gaze, thy mild and placid light
Sheds a soft calm upon my troubled breast;
And oft I think--fair planet of the night--
That in thy orb, the wretched may have rest:
The sufferers of the earth perhaps may go,
Released by Death--to thy benignant sphere,
And the sad children of Despair and Woe
Forget, in thee, their cup of sorrow here.
Oh! that I soon may reach thy world serene,
Poor wearied pilgrim--in this toiling scene!

The Brain is Wider Than the Sky

Listen to:

The Brain is Wider Than the Sky (:38)

by Emily Dickinson 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

The brain is wider than the sky,

  For, put them side by side,

The one the other will include

  With ease, and you beside.


The brain is deeper than the sea,
     
  For, hold them, blue to blue,

The one the other will absorb,

  As sponges, buckets do.


The brain is just the weight of God,

  For, lift them, pound for pound,
     
And they will differ, if they do,

  As syllable from sound.

Written January 1st, 1832

Listen to:

Written January 1st, 1832 (1:56)

by Henry Alford 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

The year is born today -- methinks it hath
A chilly time of it; for down the sky
The flaky frost-cloud stretches, and the Sun
Lifted his large light from the Eastern plains,
With gloomy mist-enfolded countenance,
And garments rolled in blood. Under the haze
Along the face of the waters, gather fast
Sharp spikes of the fresh ice; as if the year
That died last night, had dropt down suddenly
In his full strength of genial government,
Prisoning the sharp breath of the Northern winds;
Who now burst forth and revel unrestrained
Over the new king's months of infancy.

The bells rung merrily when the old year died;
He past away in music; his death-sleep
Closed on him like the slumber of a child
When a sweet hymn in a sweet voice above him
Takes up into its sound his gentle being.

And we will raise to him two monuments;
One where he died, and one where he lies buried;
One in the pealing of those midnight bells,
Their swell and fall, and varied interchange,
The tones that come again upon the spirit
In years far off, mid unshaped accidents;--
And one in the deep quiet of the soul,
The mingled memories of a thousand moods
Of joy and sorrow;--and his epitaph
Shall be upon him;--``Here lie the remains
Of one, who was less valued while he lived,
Than thought on when he died.''

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.

In Drear-Nighted December

Listen to:

In Drear-Nighted December (:59)

by John Keats 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

In drear nighted December,
   Too happy, happy tree,
Thy branches ne’er remember
   Their green felicity—
The north cannot undo them
With a sleety whistle through them
Nor frozen thawings glue them
   From budding at the prime.

In drear-nighted December,
   Too happy, happy brook,
Thy bubblings ne’er remember
   Apollo’s summer look;
But with a sweet forgetting,
They stay their crystal fretting,
Never, never petting
   About the frozen time.

Ah! would ‘twere so with many
   A gentle girl and boy—
But were there ever any
   Writh’d not of passed joy?
The feel of not to feel it,
When there is none to heal it
Nor numbed sense to steel it,
   Was never said in rhyme.

Jack Frost

Listen to:

Jack Frost (1:20)

by Cotton Noe 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

In a pixy chariot, drawn,

Not by deer, but elfin fawn,

Thou hast come, Jack Frost and gone.
Silently, unheralded,

O'er the earth thy chariot sped;

Dear Jack Frost, where hast thou fled?
Thou the child's and poet's friend,

Brings't us blessings without end,

Joys the world can not transcend.
Naught but beauty now remains—

Flowers, ferns and fairy fanes,

Wrought upon the window panes;
Fields and forests all aglow,—

Colors only thou dost know:

How the heart doth overflow!
Purple clusters thine and mine,

Winter-wild and muscadine,

Bursting with the wine of vine!
Haws, persimmons, berries red,

Nuts the earth have overspread—

Dear Jack Frost, why hast thou fled?
Old Chris we hail with all his boast,

His jolly fun and merry cost,

But oh, we love Jack Frost, Jack Frost!

The Ice-King of the South

Listen to:

The Ice-King of the South [excerpt] (1:44)

by Cotton Noe 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

He came, proud monarch of the Land of Snows,

Triumphant, in his argent chariot, decked

With jewels mined in regions of the polar zones!

He came! his fifty snowy steeds were swift

As howling north-winds, and their flowing manes

Were flecked with diamonds brighter than Brazilian stones!

He came! To celebrate his triumph, first

He spread a fleecy mantle o'er the earth—

A frozen shroud symbolic of the Death he wrought.

And then to every pendent branch he hung

A glittering sword,—the tyrant's right to rule,—

Demanding greater homage than ever warrior sought.
More brilliant pageant than the Ice-King's in

The Land of Flowers, never graced return

Of oriental monarch from victorious wars.

But oh! beneath the sparkle and the gleam

Of crystal beauty beats an icy heart,

And a sullen silence his splendid triumph mars;

The waterfalls that leap from jutting ledge

In happy song, are speechless as the tomb,

And every melody that haunts the woods and streams

Has vanished from the earth, and Nature's voice

That erstwhile woke the matin in the mead

Is silent now as music of forgotten dreams.


Winter

Listen to:

Winter (:57)

by Robert Southey 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

A wrinkled crabbed man they picture thee, 

Old Winter, with a rugged beard as grey 

As the long moss upon the apple-tree; 

Blue-lipt, an icedrop at thy sharp blue nose, 

Close muffled up, and on thy dreary way 

Plodding alone through sleet and drifting snows. 

They should have drawn thee by the high-heapt hearth, 

Old Winter! seated in thy great armed chair, 

Watching the children at their Christmas mirth; 

Or circled by them as thy lips declare 

Some merry jest, or tale of murder dire, 

Or troubled spirit that disturbs the night, 

Pausing at times to rouse the mouldering fire, 

Or taste the old October brown and bright.

Frost at Midnight

Listen to:

Frost at Midnight [excerpt] (1:07)

by Samuel Taylor Coleridge 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

The Frost performs its secret ministry,

Unhelped by any wind. The owlet’s cry

Came loud--and hark, again! loud as before.

The inmates of my cottage, all at rest,

Have left me to that solitude, which suits

Abstruser musings: save that at my side

My cradled infant slumbers peacefully.

’Tis calm indeed! so calm, that it disturbs

And vexes meditation with its strange

And extreme silentness. Sea, hill, and wood,

This populous village! Sea, and hill, and wood,

With all the numberless goings-on of life,

Inaudible as dreams! the thin blue flame

Lies on my low-burnt fire, and quivers not;

Only that film, which fluttered on the grate,

Still flutters there, the sole unquiet thing.


Hallow'd Season

Listen to:

Hallow’d Season (:32)

by William Shakespeare

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

Some say that ever 'gainst that season comes
Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated,
The bird of dawning singeth all night long:
And then, they say, no spirit dares stir abroad;
The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike,
No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,
So hallow'd and so gracious is the time.

Marcellus in Hamlet, Act I, Scene 1

Winter

Listen to:

Winter (:46)

by Walter de la Mare 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

 Clouded with snow 

The cold winds blow, 

And shrill on leafless bough 

The robin with its burning breast 

Alone sings now. 



The rayless sun,

Day's journey done, 

Sheds its last ebbing light 

On fields in leagues of beauty spread 

Unearthly white. 



Thick draws the dark, 

And spark by spark, 

The frost-fires kindle, and soon 

Over that sea of frozen foam 

Floats the white moon.

Winter-Time

Listen to:

Winter-Time (1:08)

by Robert Louis Stevenson 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

Late lies the wintry sun a-bed, 

A frosty, fiery sleepy-head; 

Blinks but an hour or two; and then, 

A blood-red orange, sets again. 



Before the stars have left the skies, 

At morning in the dark I rise; 

And shivering in my nakedness, 

By the cold candle, bathe and dress. 



Close by the jolly fire I sit 

To warm my frozen bones a bit; 

Or with a reindeer-sled, explore 

The colder countries round the door. 



When to go out, my nurse doth wrap 

Me in my comforter and cap; 

The cold wind burns my face, and blows 

Its frosty pepper up my nose. 



Black are my steps on silver sod; 

Thick blows my frosty breath abroad; 

And tree and house, and hill and lake, 

Are frosted like a wedding cake.

Jack Frost

Listen to:

Jack Frost (1:36)

by Gabriel Setoun 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

The door was shut, as doors should be,

Before you went to bed last night;

Yet Jack Frost has got in, you see,

And left your window silver white.
He must have waited till you slept;

And not a single word he spoke,

But pencilled o'er the panes and crept

Away again before you woke.
And now you cannot see the hills

Nor fields that stretch beyond the lane;

But there are fairer things than these

His fingers traced on every pane.
Rocks and castles towering high;

Hills and dales, and streams and fields;

And knights in armor riding by,

With nodding plumes and shining shields.
And here are little boats, and there

Big ships with sails spread to the breeze;

And yonder, palm trees waving fair

On islands set in silver seas,
And butterflies with gauzy wings;

And herds of cows and flocks of sheep;

And fruit and flowers and all the things

You see when you are sound asleep.
For, creeping softly underneath

The door when all the lights are out,

Jack Frost takes every breath you breathe,

And knows the things you think about.
He paints them on the window-pane

In fairy lines with frozen steam;

And when you wake you see again

The lovely things you saw in dream.

True Poem of Riches

Listen to:

True Poem of Riches (1:29)

[excerpt from Starting from Paumanok]

by Walt Whitman

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

I will make the true poem of riches,
To earn for the body and the mind whatever adheres and goes forward
    and is not dropt by death;
I will effuse egotism and show it underlying all, and I will be the
    bard of personality,
And I will show of male and female that either is but the equal of
    the other,
...

And I will show that there is no imperfection in the present, and
    can be none in the future,
And I will show that whatever happens to anybody it may be turn'd to
    beautiful results,
And I will show that nothing can happen more beautiful than death,
And I will thread a thread through my poems that time and events are
    compact,
And that all the things of the universe are perfect miracles, each
    as profound as any.

I will not make poems with reference to parts,
But I will make poems, songs, thoughts, with reference to ensemble,
And I will not sing with reference to a day, but with reference to
    all days,
And I will not make a poem nor the least part of a poem but has
    reference to the soul,
Because having look'd at the objects of the universe, I find there
    is no one nor any particle of one but has reference to the soul.

Dead Poets, Philosophs, Priests

Listen to:

Dead Poets, Philosophs, Priests ()

 [excerpt from Starting from Paumanok]

by Walt Whitman

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

Dead poets, philosophs, priests,
Martyrs, artists, inventors, governments long since,
Language-shapers on other shores,
Nations once powerful, now reduced, withdrawn, or desolate,
I dare not proceed till I respectfully credit what you have left
    wafted hither,
I have perused it, own it is admirable, (moving awhile among it,)
Think nothing can ever be greater, nothing can ever deserve more
    than it deserves,
Regarding it all intently a long while, then dismissing it,
I stand in my place with my own day here.

Starting from Paumanok

Listen to:

Starting from Paumanok [excerpt](1:27)

by Walt Whitman

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

Starting from fish-shape Paumanok where I was born,
Well-begotten, and rais'd by a perfect mother,
After roaming many lands, lover of populous pavements,
Dweller in Mannahatta my city, or on southern savannas,
Or a soldier camp'd or carrying my knapsack and gun, or a miner
    in California,
Or rude in my home in Dakota's woods, my diet meat, my drink from
    the spring,
Or withdrawn to muse and meditate in some deep recess,
Far from the clank of crowds intervals passing rapt and happy,
Aware of the fresh free giver the flowing Missouri, aware of
    mighty Niagara,
Aware of the buffalo herds grazing the plains, the hirsute and
    strong-breasted bull,
Of earth, rocks, Fifth-month flowers experienced, stars, rain, snow,
    my amaze,
Having studied the mocking-bird's tones and the flight of the
    mountain-hawk,
And heard at dawn the unrivall'd one, the hermit thrush from the
    swamp-cedars,
Solitary, singing in the West, I strike up for a New World.

Poets to Come

Listen to:

Poets to Come (:55)

by Walt Whitman

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

Poets to come! orators, singers, musicians to come!
Not to-day is to justify me and answer what I am for,
But you, a new brood, native, athletic, continental, greater than
    before known,
Arouse! for you must justify me.

I myself but write one or two indicative words for the future,
I but advance a moment only to wheel and hurry back in the darkness.

I am a man who, sauntering along without fully stopping, turns a
    casual look upon you and then averts his face,
Leaving it to you to prove and define it,
Expecting the main things from you.