Poetry

Listen to:

Poetry (1:58)

by Marianne Moore 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

I, too, dislike it: there are things that are important beyond

      all this fiddle.

   Reading it, however, with a perfect contempt for it, one

      discovers in

   it after all, a place for the genuine.

      Hands that can grasp, eyes

      that can dilate, hair that can rise

         if it must, these things are important not because a

high-sounding interpretation can be put upon them but because

      they are

   useful. When they become so derivative as to become

      unintelligible,

   the same thing may be said for all of us, that we

      do not admire what

      we cannot understand: the bat

         holding on upside down or in quest of something to 

eat, elephants pushing, a wild horse taking a roll, a tireless

      wolf under

   a tree, the immovable critic twitching his skin like a horse

      that feels a flea, the base-

   ball fan, the statistician--

      nor is it valid

         to discriminate against “business documents and

school-books”; all these phenomena are important. One must make

      a distinction

   however: when dragged into prominence by half poets, the

      result is not poetry,

   nor till the poets among us can be

     “literalists of

      the imagination”--above

         insolence and triviality and can present

for inspection, “imaginary gardens with real toads in them,"

      shall we have

   it. In the meantime, if you demand on the one hand,

   the raw material of poetry in

      all its rawness and

      that which is on the other hand

         genuine, you are interested in poetry.

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.

The Rainbow

Photo by David Appleyard

Listen to:

The Rainbow (:31)

by Walter de La Mare 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

I saw the lovely arch
  Of Rainbow span the sky,
The gold sun burning
  As the rain swept by.

In bright-ringed solitude
  The showery foliage shone
One lovely moment,
  And the Bow was gone.

The Roundel

Listen to:

The Roundel (:56)

by Algernon Charles Swinburne

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

Algernon Charles Swindburne was born this day in 1837

A roundel is wrought as a ring or a starbright sphere,

      With craft of delight and with cunning of sound unsought,

That the heart of the hearer may smile if to pleasure his ear

      A roundel is wrought.

Its jewel of music is carven of all or of aught—

      Love, laughter, or mourning—remembrance of rapture or fear—

That fancy may fashion to hang in the ear of thought.

As a bird's quick song runs round, and the hearts in us hear

      Pause answer to pause, and again the same strain caught,

So moves the device whence, round as a pearl or tear,

      A roundel is wrought.

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

The Yak

Listen to:

The Yak (:43)

by Hilaire Belloc 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

The Yak

          As a friend to the children

                             commend me the Yak.

            You will find it exactly the thing:

          It will carry and fetch,

                        you can ride on its back,

          Or lead it about

            with a string.

          The Tartar who dwells on the plains of Thibet

            (A desolate region of snow)

          Has for centuries made it a nursery pet,

            And surely the Tartar should know!

          Then tell your papa where the Yak can be got,

            And if he is awfully rich

          He will buy you the creature--

          or else

                  he will not.

          (I cannot be positive which.)

"Even Such is Time"

Listen to:

Even Such is Time (:20)

by Sir Walter Ralegh

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

Even such is time, that takes in trust

Our youth, our joys, our all we have,

And pays us but with earth and dust;

Who, in the dark and silent grave,

When we have wandered all our ways,

Shuts up the story of our days ...

"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.           

What is Our Life?

Listen to:

What is Our Life?

by Sir Walter Ralegh

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

What is our life? a play of passion,

Our mirth the musicke of division,

Our mothers wombes the tyring houses be,

When we are drest for this short Comedy,

The earth the stage; Heaven the spectator is,

That sits and markes whosoe’er doth act amisse,

Our graves that hide us from the searching Sun,

Are like drawne curtaynes when the play is done,

Thus march we playing to our latest rest,

Onely we dye in earnest, that's no Jest.                            

musicke of division,, the entr'acte, the music that marked

            the division between acts.

tyring houses, on the Elizabethan stage, the 'tiring house',

            from "attiring house" was the room where the actors

            got dressed before a performance.

spector, spectator, with a play on 'spectre'.

still, always, ever.

latest, last.]

Kubla Khan

Listen to:

Kubla Khan 

Or, A Vision in a Dream. A Fragment

by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan

A stately pleasure-dome decree:

Where Alph, the sacred river, ran

Through caverns measureless to man

Down to a sunless sea.

So twice five miles of fertile ground

With walls and towers were girdled round:

And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,

Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;

And here were forests ancient as the hills,

Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted

Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!

A savage place! as holy and enchanted

As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted

By woman wailing for her demon-lover!

And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,

As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,

A mighty fountain momently was forced:

Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst

Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,

Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail:

And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever

It flung up momently the sacred river.

Five miles meandering with a mazy motion

Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,

Then reached the caverns measureless to man,

And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean:

And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far

Ancestral voices prophesying war!

The shadow of the dome of pleasure

Floated midway on the waves;

Where was heard the mingled measure

From the fountain and the caves.

It was a miracle of rare device,

A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!

A damsel with a dulcimer

In a vision once I saw:

It was an Abyssinian maid,

And on her dulcimer she played,

Singing of Mount Abora.

Could I revive within me

Her symphony and song,

To such a deep delight 'twould win me

That with music loud and long

I would build that dome in air,

That sunny dome! those caves of ice!

And all who heard should see them there,

And all should cry, Beware! Beware!

His flashing eyes, his floating hair!

Weave a circle round him thrice,

And close your eyes with holy dread,

For he on honey-dew hath fed

And drunk the milk of Paradise.