A-Roving

Listen to:

A-Roving (:43)

by George Gordon, Lord Byron 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

So, we'll go no more a-roving

   So late into the night,

Though the heart be still as loving,

   And the moon be still as bright.

For the sword outwears its sheath,

   And the soul wears out the breast,

And the heart must pause to breathe,

   And love itself have rest.

Though the night was made for loving,

   And the day returns too soon,

Yet we'll go no more a-roving

   By the light of the moon.

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!

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.

Be Drunken

Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh

Listen to:

Be Drunken (1:26)

by Charles Baudelaire 

translated by Arthur Symons

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

Be always drunken. Nothing else matters: that is the only question. If you would not feel the horrible burden of Time weighing on your shoulders and crushing you to the earth, be drunken continually.

Drunken with what? With wine, with poetry, or with virtue, as you will. But be drunken.

And if sometimes, on the stairs of a palace, or on the green side of a ditch, or in the dreary solitude of your own room, you should awaken and the drunkenness be half or wholly slipped away from you, ask of the wind, or of the wave, or of the star, or of the bird, or of the clock, of whatever flies, or sighs, or rocks, or sings, or speaks, ask what hour it is; and the wind, wave, star, bird, clock, will answer you: "It is the hour to be drunken!" 

Be drunken, if you would not be martyred slaves of Time; be drunken continually! With wine, with poetry, or with virtue, as you will.

Love (III)

Listen to:

Love (III) (1:15)

by George Herbert 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

Love bade me welcome. Yet my soul drew back

                              Guilty of dust and sin.

But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack

                             From my first entrance in,

Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning,

                             If I lacked any thing.

A guest, I answered, worthy to be here:

                             Love said, You shall be he.

I the unkind, ungrateful? Ah my dear,

                             I cannot look on thee.

Love took my hand, and smiling did reply,

                             Who made the eyes but I?

Truth Lord, but I have marred them: let my shame

                             Go where it doth deserve.

And know you not, says Love, who bore the blame?

                             My dear, then I will serve.

You must sit down, says Love, and taste my meat:

                             So I did sit and eat.

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.)