June

Listen to:

June (:41)

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

Mine is the Month of Roses; yes, and mine
The Month of Marriages! All pleasant sights
And scents, the fragrance of the blossoming vine,
The foliage of the valleys and the heights.
Mine are the longest days, the loveliest nights;
The mower's scythe makes music to my ear;
I am the mother of all dear delights;
I am the fairest daughter of the year.


Photo from Pat @ Mille Fiori Favoriti
http://millefiorifavoriti.blogspot.com/2010/06/pink-roses-in-cranford-rose-garden.html

Mezzo Cammin

Listen to:

Mezzo Cammin (1:05)

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

Half of my life is gone, and I have let 

   The years slip from me and have not fulfilled 

   The aspiration of my youth, to build 

   Some tower of song with lofty parapet. 

Not indolence, nor pleasure, nor the fret 

   Of restless passions that would not be stilled, 

   But sorrow, and a care that almost killed, 

   Kept me from what I may accomplish yet; 

Though, half-way up the hill, I see the Past 

   Lying beneath me with its sounds and sights,— 

   A city in the twilight dim and vast, 

With smoking roofs, soft bells, and gleaming lights,— 

   And hear above me on the autumnal blast 

   The cataract of Death far thundering from the heights.

A Light Exists in Spring

Listen to:

A Light Exists in Spring (:57)

by Emily Dickinson 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

A light exists in spring

  Not present on the year

At any other period.

  When March is scarcely here

A color stands abroad

  On solitary hills

That silence cannot overtake,

  But human nature feels.

It waits upon the lawn;

  It shows the furthest tree

Upon the furthest slope we know;

  It almost speaks to me.

  

Then, as horizons step,

  Or noons report away,

Without the formula of sound,

  It passes, and we stay:

A quality of loss

  Affecting our content,

As trade had suddenly encroached

  Upon a sacrament.

      

May Night

Listen to:

May Night (:35)

by Sara Teasdale 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

The spring is fresh and fearless
And every leaf is new,
The world is brimmed with moonlight,
The lilac brimmed with dew.

Here in the moving shadows
I catch my breath and sing--
My heart is fresh and fearless
And over-brimmed with spring. 

Song on May Morning

Listen to:

Song on May Morning (:47)

by John Milton 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

Now the bright morning Star, Dayes harbinger,

  Comes dancing from the East, and leads with her

  The Flowry May, who from her green lap throws

The yellow Cowslip, and the pale Primrose.

  Hail bounteous May that dost inspire 

  Mirth and youth, and warm desire,

  Woods and Groves, are of thy dressing,

  Hill and Dale, doth boast thy blessing.

Thus we salute thee with our early Song,

And welcome thee, and wish thee long.  

The Last of April

"Raindrops Falling on Green Grasses" by Jennie Marie Schell

Listen to:

The Last of April (1:09)

by John Clare 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

Old April wanes, and her last dewy morn

Her death-bed steeps in tears:--to hail the May

New blooming blossoms 'neath the sun are born,

And all poor April's charms are swept away.

The early primrose, peeping once so gay,

Is now chok'd up with many a mounting weed,

And the poor violet we once admir'd

Creeps in the grass unsought for--flowers succeed,

Gaudy and new, and more to be desired,

And of the old the school-boy seemeth tired.

So with us all, poor April, as with thee!

Each hath his day;--the future brings my fears:

Friends may grow weary, new flowers rising be,

And my last end, like thine, be steep'd in tears.

The Scarecrow

Listen to:

The Scarecrow (1:14)

by Walter de la Mare 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

All winter through I bow my head

  Beneath the driving rain;

The North wind powders me with snow

  And blows me black again;

At midnight 'neath a maze of stars

  I flame with glittering rime,

And stand, above the stubble, stiff

  As mail at morning-prime.

But when that child, called Spring, and all

  His host of children, come,

Scattering their buds and dew upon

  Those acres of my home,

Some rapture in my rags awakes;

  I lift void eyes and scan

The skies for crows, those ravening foes,

  Of my strange master, Man.

I watch him striding lank behind

  His clashing team, and know

Soon will the wheat swish body high

  Where once lay sterile snow;

Soon shall I gaze across a sea

  Of sun-begotten grain,

Which my unflinching watch hath sealed

  For harvest once again.

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!

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

What the Thrush Said

Wood Thrush photo by Bob Gress birdsinfocus.com

Listen to:

What the Thrush Said (1:02)

by John Keats 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

O Thou whose face hath felt the Winter’s wind,
Whose eye has seen the snow-clouds hung in mist,
And the black elm tops ’mong the freezing stars,
To thee the spring will be a harvest-time.
O thou, whose only book has been the light
Of supreme darkness which thou feddest on
Night after night when Phœbus was away,
To thee the Spring shall be a triple morn.
O fret not after knowledge—I have none,
And yet my song comes native with the warmth.
O fret not after knowledge—I have none,
And yet the Evening listens. He who saddens
At the thought of idleness cannot be idle,
And he’s awake who thinks himself asleep.

A Sailor’s Rhyme

Listen to:

A Sailor’s Rhyme (:56)

by Robert Louis Stevenson 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

The wind blew shrill and smart,
And the wind awoke my heart
Again to go a-sailing o'er the sea,
To hear the cordage moan
And the straining timbers groan,
And to see the flying pennon lie a-lee.

O sailor of the fleet,
It is time to stir the feet!
It's time to man the dingy and to row!
It's lay your hand in mine
And it's empty down the wine,
And it's drain a health to death before we go!

To death, my lads, we sail;
And it's death that blows the gale
And death that holds the tiller as we ride.
For he's the king of all
In the tempest and the squall,
And the ruler of the Ocean wild and wide!

March

Listen to:

March (:38)

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

In ancient Rome, March was the first month of the year until Numa, second king of Rome, changed the beginning of the year to January around 700 B. C.

I Martius am! Once first, and now the third!
To lead the Year was my appointed place;
A mortal dispossessed me by a word,
And set there Janus with the double face.
Hence I make war on all the human race;
I shake the cities with my hurricanes;
I flood the rivers and their banks efface,
And drown the farms and hamlets with my rains.

from The Poet's Calendar

Snow-Flakes

Listen to:

Snow-Flakes (1:07)

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

Out of the bosom of the Air,

    Out of the cloud-folds of her garments shaken,

Over the woodlands brown and bare,

    Over the harvest-fields forsaken,

      Silent, and soft, and slow

      Descends the snow.

Even as our cloudy fancies take

    Suddenly shape in some divine expression,

Even as the troubled heart doth make

In the white countenance confession,

      The troubled sky reveals

      The grief it feels.

This is the poem of the air,

    Slowly in silent syllables recorded;

This is the secret of despair,

    Long in its cloudy bosom hoarded,

      Now whispered and revealed

      To wood and field.

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.

January Cold Desolate

Listen to:

January Cold Desolate (:44)

by Christina Rossetti 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

January cold desolate; 


February all dripping wet; 


March wind ranges; 


April changes; 


Birds sing in tune 


To flowers of May, 


And sunny June 


Brings longest day; 


In scorched July 


The storm-clouds fly 


Lightning-torn; 


August bears corn, 


September fruit; 


In rough October 


Earth must disrobe her; 


Stars fall and shoot 


In keen November; 


And night is long 


And cold is strong 


In bleak December. 

Winter Leafage

Listen to:

Winter Leafage (1:05)

by Edith Matilda Thomas 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

Each year I mark one lone outstanding tree,
Clad in its robings of the summer past,
Dry, wan, and shivering in the wintry blast.
It will not pay the season’s rightful fee,—
It will not set its frost-burnt leafage free;
But like some palsied miser all aghast,
Who hoards his sordid treasure to the last,
It sighs, it moans, it sings in eldritch glee.
A foolish tree, to dote on summers gone;
A faithless tree, that never feels how spring
Creeps up the world to make a leafy dawn,
And recompense for all despoilment bring!
Oh, let me not, heyday and youth withdrawn,
With failing hands to their vain semblance cling!

January - Belloc

Listen to:

January (1:03)

by Hillaire Belloc 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

It freezes- all across a soundless sky
The birds go home. The governing dark's begun:
The steadfast dark that waits not for a sun;
The ultimate dark wherein the race shall die.

Death, with his evil finger to his lip,
Leers in at human windows, turning spy
To learn the country where his rule shall lie
When he assumes perpetual generalship.

The undefeated enemy, the chill
That shall benumb the voiceful earth at last,
Is master of our moment, and has bound
The viewless wind it-self. There is no sound.
It freezes. Every friendly stream is fast.
It freezes; and the graven twigs are still. 

January - Jackson

Listen to:

January (1:07)

by Helen Hunt Jackson 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

O Winter! frozen pulse and heart of fire,
What loss is theirs who from thy kingdom turn
Dismayed, and think thy snow a sculptured urn
Of death! Far sooner in midsummer tire
The streams than under ice. June could not hire
Her roses to forego the strength they learn
In sleeping on thy breast. No fires can burn
The bridges thou dost lay where men desire
In vain to build. O Heart, when Love's sun goes
To northward, and the sounds of singing cease,
Keep warm by inner fires, and rest in peace.
Sleep on content, as sleeps the patient rose.
Walk boldly on the white untrodden snows,
The winter is the winter's own release. 

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.

January

Listen to:

January (:34)

by William Carlos Williams 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

Again I reply to the triple winds
running chromatic fifths of derision
outside my window:
                                          Play louder.
You will not succeed. I am
bound more to my sentences
the more you batter at me
to follow you.
                                           And the wind,
as before, fingers perfectly
its derisive music.