How Can My Muse

Painting by Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema

Listen to:

How Can My Muse (1:03)

by William Shakespeare 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

XXXVIII.

How can my muse want subject to invent,

While thou dost breathe, that pour'st into my verse

Thine own sweet argument, too excellent

For every vulgar paper to rehearse?

O! give thy self the thanks, if aught in me

Worthy perusal stand against thy sight;

For who's so dumb that cannot write to thee,

When thou thy self dost give invention light?

Be thou the tenth Muse, ten times more in worth

Than those old nine which rhymers invocate;

And he that calls on thee, let him bring forth

Eternal numbers to outlive long date.

If my slight muse do please these curious days,

The pain be mine, but thine shall be the praise.

Love of Nature

Listen to:

Love of Nature (1:38)

by John Clare 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

  I love thee, Nature, with a boundless love!
  The calm of earth, the storm of roaring woods!
  The winds breathe happiness where'er I rove!
  There's life's own music in the swelling floods!
  My heart is in the thunder-melting clouds,
  The snow-cap't mountain, and the rolling sea!
  And hear ye not the voice where darkness shrouds
  The heavens? There lives happiness for me!

  My pulse beats calmer while His lightnings play!
  My eye, with earth's delusions waxing dim,
  Clears with the brightness of eternal day!
  The elements crash round me! It is He!
  Calmly I hear His voice and never start.
  From Eve's posterity I stand quite free,
  Nor feel her curses rankle round my heart.

  Love is not here. Hope is, and at His voice—
  The rolling thunder and the roaring sea—
  My pulses leap, and with the hills rejoice;
  Then strife and turmoil are at end for me.
  No matter where life's ocean leads me on,
  For Nature is my mother, and I rest,
  When tempests trouble and the sun is gone,
  Like to a weary child upon her breast.

Michael Robartes Remembers Forgotten Beauty

Listen to:

Michael Robartes Remembers Forgotten Beauty (1:24)

by William Butler Yeats 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

When my arms wrap you round I press

My heart upon the loveliness

That has long faded from the world;

The jewelled crowns that kings have hurled

In shadowy pools, when armies fled;

The love-tales wove with silken thread

By dreaming ladies upon cloth

That has made fat the murderous moth;

The roses that of old time were

Woven by ladies in their hair,

The dew-cold lilies ladies bore 

Through many a sacred corridor

Where such gray clouds of incense rose

That only the gods' eyes did not close:

For that pale breast and lingering hand

Come from a more dream-heavy land,

A more dream-heavy hour than this;

And when you sigh from kiss to kiss

I hear white Beauty sighing, too,

For hours when all must fade like dew

But flame on flame, deep under deep,

Throne over throne, where in half sleep

Their swords upon their iron knees

Brood her high lonely mysteries.

(from The Wind Among the Reeds)

Cosmopolite

Georgia Douglas Johnson

Listen to:

Cosmopolite (:41)

by Georgia Douglas Johnson 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

Not wholly this or that,
But wrought
Of alien bloods am I,
A product of the interplay
Of traveled hearts.
Estranged, yet not estranged, I stand
All comprehending;
From my estate
I view earth’s frail dilemma;
Scion of fused strength am I,
All understanding,
Nor this nor that
Contains me.

Lines Written in Early Spring

Listen to:

Lines Written in Early Spring (1:17)

by William Wordsworth 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

I heard a thousand blended notes,

While in a grove I sate reclined,

In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts

Bring sad thoughts to the mind.

To her fair works did Nature link

The human soul that through me ran;

And much it grieved my heart to think

What man has made of man.

Through primrose tufts, in that green bower,

The periwinkle trailed its wreaths;

And ’tis my faith that every flower

Enjoys the air it breathes.

The birds around me hopped and played,

Their thoughts I cannot measure:—

But the least motion which they made

It seemed a thrill of pleasure.

The budding twigs spread out their fan,

To catch the breezy air;

And I must think, do all I can,

That there was pleasure there.

If this belief from heaven be sent,

If such be Nature’s holy plan,

Have I not reason to lament

What man has made of man?

Miracles

Listen to:

Miracles (1:52)

by Walt Whitman 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

Why, who makes much of a miracle?
As to me I know of nothing else but miracles,
Whether I walk the streets of Manhattan,
Or dart my sight over the roofs of houses toward the sky,
Or wade with naked feet along the beach just in the edge of the water,
Or stand under trees in the woods,
Or talk by day with any one I love, or sleep in the bed at night with any one I love,
Or sit at table at dinner with the rest,
Or look at strangers opposite me riding in the car,
Or watch honey-bees busy around the hive of a summer forenoon,
Or animals feeding in the fields,
Or birds, or the wonderfulness of insects in the air,
Or the wonderfulness of the sundown, or of stars shining so quiet and bright,
Or the exquisite delicate thin curve of the new moon in spring;
These with the rest, one and all, are to me miracles,
The whole referring, yet each distinct and in its place.

To me every hour of the light and dark is a miracle,
Every cubic inch of space is a miracle,
Every square yard of the surface of the earth is spread with the same,
Every foot of the interior swarms with the same.

To me the sea is a continual miracle,
The fishes that swim—the rocks—the motion of the waves—the ships with men in them,
What stranger miracles are there?

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.

The Invitation

Listen to:

The Invitation (1:16)

by John Clare 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

  Come hither, my dear one, my choice one, and rare one,
  And let us be walking the meadows so fair,
  Where on pilewort and daisies the eye fondly gazes,
  And the wind plays so sweet in thy bonny brown hair.

  Come with thy maiden eye, lay silks and satins by;
  Come in thy russet or grey cotton gown;
  Come to the meads, dear, where flags, sedge, and reeds appear,
  Rustling to soft winds and bowing low down.

  Come with thy parted hair, bright eyes, and forehead bare;
  Come to the whitethorn that grows in the lane;
  To banks of primroses, where sweetness reposes,
  Come, love, and let us be happy again.

  Come where the violet flowers, come where the morning showers
  Pearl on the primrose and speedwell so blue;
  Come to that clearest brook that ever runs round the nook
  Where you and I pledged our first love so true.

The Poet Pleads with His Friend For Old Friends

W.B. Yeats in 1908

Listen to:

The Poet Pleads with His Friend For Old Friends (:36)

by William Butler Yeats 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

Though you are in your shining days,

Voices among the crowd

And new friends busy with your praise,

Be not unkind or proud,

But think about old friends the most:

Time's bitter flood will rise,

Your beauty perish and be lost

For all eyes but these eyes.

(from The Wind Among the Reeds)

Spring Day

Listen to:

Spring Day (1:25)

by Amy Lowell 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

The day is fresh-washed and fair, and there is a smell of tulips and narcissus in the air.

The sunshine pours in at the bath-room window and bores through the water in the bath-tub in lathes and planes of greenish-white. It cleaves the water into flaws like a jewel, and cracks it to bright light.

Little spots of sunshine lie on the surface of the water and dance, dance, and their reflections wobble deliciously over the ceiling; a stir of my finger sets them whirring, reeling. I move a foot and the planes of light in the water jar. I lie back and laugh, and let the green-white water, the sun-flawed beryl water, flow over me. The day is almost too bright to bear, the green water covers me from the too bright day. I will lie here awhile and play with the water and the sun spots. The sky is blue and high. A crow flaps by the window, and there is a whiff of tulips and narcissus in the air.