The Fairies Dancing 1873

Listen to:

The Fairies Dancing (1:21)

by Walter de la Mare 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

Walter de la Mare was born this day in 1873

I heard along the early hills,

  Ere yet the lark was risen up,

Ere yet the dawn with firelight fills

  The night-dew of the bramble-cup,--

I heard the fairies in a ring

  Sing as they tripped a lilting round

Soft as the moon on wavering wing.

  The starlight shook as if with sound,

As if with echoing, and the stars

  Prankt their bright eyes with trembling gleams;

While red with war the gusty Mars

  Rained upon earth his ruddy beams.

He shone alone, low down the West,

  While I, behind a hawthorn-bush,

Watched on the fairies flaxen-tressed

  The fires of the morning flush.

Till, as a mist, their beauty died,

  Their singing shrill and fainter grew;

And daylight tremulous and wide

  Flooded the moorland through and through;

Till Urdon's copper weathercock

  Was reared in golden flame afar,

And dim from moonlit dreams awoke

  The towers and groves of Arroar.

The Lighted Window

Listen to:

The Lighted Window (1:21)

by Sara Teasdale 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

He said:
“In the winter dusk
When the pavements were gleaming with rain,
I walked thru a dingy street
Hurried, harassed,
Thinking of all my problems that never are solved.
Suddenly out of the mist, a flaring gas-jet
Shone from a huddled shop.
I saw thru the bleary window
A mass of playthings:
False-faces hung on strings,
Valentines, paper and tinsel,
Tops of scarlet and green,
Candy, marbles, jacks—
A confusion of color
Pathetically gaudy and cheap.
All of my boyhood
Rushed back.
Once more these things were treasures
Wildly desired.
With covetous eyes I looked again at the marbles,
The precious agates, the pee-wees, the chinies—
Then I passed on.

In the winter dusk,
The pavements were gleaming with rain;
There in the lighted window
I left my boyhood.”

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.