What Riches Have You

Listen to:

What Riches Have You (:59)

  by George Santayana  

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

SONNET 29

                                                            

What riches have you that you deem me poor,

Or what large comfort that you call me sad?

Tell me what makes you so exceeding glad:

Is your earth happy or your heaven sure?

I hope for heaven, since the stars endure

And bring such tidings as our fathers had.

I know no deeper doubt to make me mad,

I need no brighter love to keep me pure.

To me the faiths of old are daily bread;

I bless their hope, I bless their will to save,

 And my deep heart still meaneth what they said.

It makes me happy that the soul is brave,

And, being so much kinsman to the dead,

I walk contented to the peopled grave.

Nuptial Verse

Listen to:

Nuptial Verse (1:25)

by Robert Herrick 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

To Mistress Elizabeth Lee, now Lady Tracy

Spring with the lark, most comely bride, and meet 

Your eager bridegroom with auspicious feet. 

The morn's far spent, and the immortal sun 

Corals* his cheek to see those rites not done. 

Fie, lovely maid ! Indeed you are too slow, 

When to the temple Love should run, not go. 

Dispatch your dressing then, and quickly wed ; 

Then feast, and coy't a little, then to bed. 

This day is Love's day, and this busy night 

Is yours, in which you challenged are to fight 

With such an arm'd, but such an easy foe, 

As will, if you yield, lie down conquer'd too. 

The field is pitch'd, but such must be your wars, 

As that your kisses must outvie the stars. 

Fall down together vanquished both, and lie 

Drown'd in the blood of rubies there, not die.

*Corals, reddens.

After the Sea-Ship

Listen to:

After the Sea-Ship (1:24)

by Walt Whitman 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

  After the sea-ship, after the whistling winds,

  After the white-gray sails taut to their spars and ropes,

  Below, a myriad myriad waves hastening, lifting up their necks,

  Tending in ceaseless flow toward the track of the ship,

  Waves of the ocean bubbling and gurgling, blithely prying,

  Waves, undulating waves, liquid, uneven, emulous waves,

  Toward that whirling current, laughing and buoyant, with curves,

  Where the great vessel sailing and tacking displaced the surface,

  Larger and smaller waves in the spread of the ocean yearnfully flowing,

  The wake of the sea-ship after she passes, flashing and frolicsome

      under the sun,

  A motley procession with many a fleck of foam and many fragments,

  Following the stately and rapid ship, in the wake following.

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.

Two Hymns to Love

Listen to:

Two Hymns to Love (1:04)

by Robert Herrick 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

A Short Hymn to Venus

Goddess, I do love a Girl

Ruby-lipp’d, and tooth’d with Pearl:

If so be, I may but prove

Lucky in the Maid I love:

I will promise there shall be

Myrtles offer’d up to Thee.

A Hymn to Venus and Cupid

Sea-born Goddess, let me be

By thy son thus grac'd, and thee;

That whene’er I woo, I find 

Virgins coy, but not unkind.

Let me, when I kiss a maid,

Taste her lips, so over-laid

With Love-syrup, that I may,

In your Temple, when I pray,

Kiss the Altar, and confess

There’s in love no bitterness.

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

Listen to:

May (:36)

by Sara Teasdale 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

The wind is tossing the lilacs,
The new leaves laugh in the sun,
And the petals fall on the orchard wall,
But for me the spring is done.

Beneath the apple blossoms
I go a wintry way,
For love that smiled in April
Is false to me in May. 

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. 

May

Listen to:

May (:40)

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

from The Poet's Calendar

Hark! The sea-faring wild-fowl loud proclaim
My coming, and the swarming of the bees.
These are my heralds, and behold! my name
Is written in blossoms on the hawthorn-trees.
I tell the mariner when to sail the seas;
I waft o'er all the land from far away
The breath and bloom of the Hesperides,
My birthplace. I am Maia. I am May.

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.