A Birthday

Listen to:

A Birthday (:55)

by Christina Rossetti 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

In celebration of the wedding of my dear friends, Casey Rich and Jillian Smith

My heart is like a singing bird 

                  Whose nest is in a water'd shoot; 

My heart is like an apple-tree 

                  Whose boughs are bent with thickset fruit; 

My heart is like a rainbow shell 

                  That paddles in a halcyon sea; 

My heart is gladder than all these 

                  Because my love is come to me. 

Raise me a dais of silk and down; 

                  Hang it with vair and purple dyes; 

Carve it in doves and pomegranates, 

                  And peacocks with a hundred eyes; 

Work it in gold and silver grapes, 

                  In leaves and silver fleurs-de-lys; 

Because the birthday of my life 

                  Is come, my love is come to me. 

Come Lovely and Soothing Death

Listen to:

 Come Lovely and Soothing Death (1:26)

by Walt Whitman 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

from "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d"

from Leaves of Grass

by Walt Whitman

Come lovely and soothing death,

Undulate round the world, serenely arriving, arriving,

In the day, in the night, to all, to each,

Sooner or later delicate death.

Prais'd be the fathomless universe,

For life and joy, and for objects and knowledge curious,

And for love, sweet love--but praise! praise! praise!

For the sure-enwinding arms of cool-enfolding death.

Dark mother always gliding near with soft feet,

Have none chanted for thee a chant of fullest welcome?

Then I chant it for thee, I glorify thee above all,

I bring thee a song that when thou must indeed come, come unfalteringly.

Approach strong deliveress,

When it is so, when thou hast taken them I joyously sing the dead,

Lost in the loving floating ocean of thee,

Laved in the flood of thy bliss O death.

June

Listen to:

June (:41)

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

Mine is the Month of Roses; yes, and mine
The Month of Marriages! All pleasant sights
And scents, the fragrance of the blossoming vine,
The foliage of the valleys and the heights.
Mine are the longest days, the loveliest nights;
The mower's scythe makes music to my ear;
I am the mother of all dear delights;
I am the fairest daughter of the year.


Photo from Pat @ Mille Fiori Favoriti
http://millefiorifavoriti.blogspot.com/2010/06/pink-roses-in-cranford-rose-garden.html

A Song of Joys

Listen to:

A Song of Joys (1:36)

by Walt Whitman 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

Walt Whitman was born this day is 1819 in West Hills, near Huntington, Long Island

  O to make the most jubilant song!

  Full of music--full of manhood, womanhood, infancy!

  Full of common employments--full of grain and trees.

  O for the voices of animals--O for the swiftness and balance of fishes!

  O for the dropping of raindrops in a song!

  O for the sunshine and motion of waves in a song!

 ….

  O to sail to sea in a ship!

  To leave this steady unendurable land,

  To leave the tiresome sameness of the streets, the sidewalks and the

      houses,

  To leave you O you solid motionless land, and entering a ship,

  To sail and sail and sail!

  O to have life henceforth a poem of new joys!

  To dance, clap hands, exult, shout, skip, leap, roll on, float on!

  To be a sailor of the world bound for all ports,

  A ship itself, (see indeed these sails I spread to the sun and air,)

  A swift and swelling ship full of rich words, full of joys.

Hear Ye! Hear Ye!

To all my loyal readers and listeners over this more than one year past:

I have been steadily blog-casting a classic poem each day since April 24, 2015. Due to a heavy burden of recording, writing, and performing commitments, I'll be pulling back now, blog-casting here from Eclectic Rhapsodics less frequently and not always a recorded poem, but sometimes hopefully interesting tidbits about rhapsodizing, about poetics (the workings of poetry), about voice, and about the Rhapsode Renaissance I would like to see become a reality. Sometimes I'll speak, sometimes I'll perform, sometimes I'll write. I will still be offering what I believe is content worthy of the attention of lovers of classic poetry, dramatically performed. Just not every single day.

I have started two new podcasts available free through iTunes:

The Vintage Verse Voice and Rhapsodize Audio. 

The Vintage Verse Voice is currently sending out daily poems poems from my personal archive, most of which have been blog-cast from here last year and before.

Rhapsodize Audio is currently sending out daily poems from the Rhapsodize catalog of rhapsodies, a diverse collection of classic poems recorded by various members of Rhapsodize from around the world.

Podcasting through iTunes is a way to reach a different audience, ones who may not subscribe to weblogs like this one. It's also possibly a more convenient way for some of you to receive your regular doses of classic poetry, dramatically performed.

Please consider subscribing to these podcasts. They also may not continue on a daily basis, but possibly thrice weekly, or even weekly. Their content will include mini-essays on poets, poetry, poetics, rhapsodics (the art of the rhapsode), updates on the growth of the Rhapsode Renaissance, and all things related to rhapsodizing.

And please stay subscribed and on the lookout for email notices of new postings here on Eclectic Rhapsodics. I'll still be offering them, just not always every day.

Once again, thank you for your attention to my offerings in the past and I hope to keep you entertained, informed, and enriched for years to come. 

Sincerely,

Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

May Song

Listen to:

May Song (1:18)

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

translated by A. S. Kline* 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

How sweetly Nature

Brightens round me!

How the sun’s shining!

How the fields gleam!

Blossoms are bursting

From every leaf,

Thousands of voices

From bushes beneath,

And joy and bliss

From every eye.

O Earth, O Sun!

O Joy, O Delight.

O Love, O Love!

So golden fair,

Like morning clouds

On the hillside there!

Your splendour blesses

The fields so fresh,

The whole wide world

In a blossoming mist.

O Darling, Darling,

How I love you!

How your eyes shine!

How you love too!

So the lark loves

Singing on high,

And flowers at dawn

The scented sky,

As I love you

With veins on fire,

You who give me

Youth, Joy, Desire

For new dances

New poetry.

Be happy forever,

As you love me!

Imagination

Listen to:

Imagination  (1:08)

by John Davidson 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

There is a dish to hold the sea,

  A brazier to contain the sun,

A compass for the galaxy,

  A voice to wake the dead and done!

That minister of ministers,

  Imagination, gathers up

The undiscovered Universe,

  Like jewels in a jasper cup.

  

Its flame can mingle north and south;

  Its accent with the thunder strive;

The ruddy sentence of its mouth

  Can make the ancient dead alive.

The mart of power, the fount of will,

  The form and mould of every star,

The source and bound of good and ill,

  The key of all the things that are,

Imagination, new and strange

  In every age, can turn the year;

Can shift the poles and lightly change

  The mood of men, the world's career.

Dirge

Listen to:

Dirge (:43)

by Edna St. Vincent Millay 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

     Boys and girls that held her dear,

       Do your weeping now;

     All you loved of her lies here.

     Brought to earth the arrogant brow,

       And the withering tongue

     Chastened; do your weeping now.

     Sing whatever songs are sung,

       Wind whatever wreath,

     For a playmate perished young,

     For a spirit spent in death.

     Boys and girls that held her dear,

     All you loved of her lies here.

If —

Listen to:

If — (2:06)

by Rudyard Kipling 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too:
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream---and not make dreams your master;
If you can think---and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same:.
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build'em up with worn-out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings,
And never breathe a word about your loss:
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings---nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much:
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And---which is more---you'll be a Man, my son! 

The Eternal Saki

Listen to:

The Eternal Saki (1:05)

by Omar Khayyam

translated by Edward Fitzgerald 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, verses 44, 46-47

translated by Edward Fitzgerald

XLIV

    Why, if the Soul can fling the Dust aside,

    And naked on the Air of Heaven ride,

    Were't not a Shame--were't not a Shame for him

    In this clay carcase crippled to abide?

XLVI

    And fear not lest Existence closing your

    Account, and mine, should know the like no more;

    The Eternal Saki from that Bowl has pour'd

    Millions of Bubbles like us, and will pour.

    XLVII

    When You and I behind the Veil are past,

    Oh, but the long, long while the World shall last,

    Which of our Coming and Departure heeds

    As the Sea's self should heed a pebble-cast.