To His Coy Mistress

Listen to:

To His Coy Mistress

by Andrew Marvell

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

 

Had we but world enough, and time,

This coyness, Lady, were no crime     

We would sit down and think which way

To walk and pass our long love's day.

Thou by the Indian Ganges' side                 

Shouldst rubies find: I by the tide      

Of Humber would complain. I would 

Love you ten years before the Flood,  

And you should, if you please, refuse 

Till the conversion of the Jews.            

My vegetable love should grow          

Vaster than empires, and more slow;  

An hundred years should go to praise

Thine eyes and on thy forehead gaze; 

Two hundred to adore each breast,       

But thirty thousand to the rest;           

An age at least to every part,   

And the last age should show your heart.

For, Lady, you deserve this state,        

Nor would I love at lower rate.           

 

  But at my back I always hear

Time's wingèd chariot hurrying near; 

And yonder all before us lie   

Deserts of vast eternity.          

Thy beauty shall no more be found,     

Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound  

My echoing song: then worms shall try

That long preserved virginity, 

And your quaint honour turn to dust, 

And into ashes all my lust:       

The grave 's a fine and private place,   

But none, I think, do there embrace.   

  Now therefore, while the youthful hue

Sits on thy skin like morning dew,     

And while thy willing soul transpires 

At every pore with instant fires,          

Now let us sport us while we may,     

And now, like amorous birds of prey, 

Rather at once our time devour           

Than languish in his slow-chapt power.

Let us roll all our strength and all       

Our sweetness up into one ball,          

And tear our pleasures with rough strife

Thorough the iron gates of life:          

Thus, though we cannot make our sun

Stand still, yet we will make him run. 

Rubai (Quatrains) from The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

Listen to:

Rubai from The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

 Come, fill the Cup, and in the fire of Spring

 Your Winter garment of Repentance fling:

   The Bird of Time has but a little way

 To flutter--and the Bird is on the Wing.

 Whether at Naishapur or Babylon,

 Whether the Cup with sweet or bitter run,

   The Wine of Life keeps oozing drop by drop,

 The Leaves of Life keep falling one by one.

Ah, my Belovéd, fill the Cup that clears

Today of past Regrets and future Fears:

    Tomorrow!--Why, Tomorrow I may be

Myself with Yesterday's Sev'n thousand Years.

 Yesterday This Day's Madness did prepare;

Tomorrow’s Silence, Triumph, or Despair:

   Drink! for you not know whence you came, nor why:

 Drink! for you know not why you go, nor where.

Seize the Day

Listen to:

Ode 11 from Book 1

by Horace

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

Seek not to know, Leuconöe,

The death that waits both you and me –

            The gods forbid such quest;

Don’t go and talk with gypsies old,

And try to get your fortune told;

            Let’s take things for the best.

Perchance we long shall feel the blast,

Perhaps this wintry gale’s our last;

            Be wise, and drink—don’t bother;

E’en as we speak Time’s flying on,

So seize the day before it’s gone;

            We may not have another.

"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.