By Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Through all the weary, hot midsummer time,
My heart has struggled with its awful grief.
And I have waited for these autumn days,
Thinking the cooling winds would bring relief.
For I remembered how I loved them once,
When all my life was full of melody.
And I have looked and longed for their return,
Nor thought but they would seem the same, to me.
The fiery summer burned itself away,
And from the hills, the golden autumn time
Looks down and smiles. The fields are tinged with brown—
The birds are talking of another clime.
The forest trees are dyed in gorgeous hues,
And weary ones have sought an earthy tomb.
But still the pain tugs fiercely at my heart—
And still my life is wrapped in awful gloom.
The winds I thought would cool my fevered brow,
Are bleak, and dreary; and they bear no balm.
The sounds I thought would soothe my throbbing brain,
Are grating discords; and they can not calm
This inward tempest. Still it rages on.
My soul is tost upon a troubled sea,
I find no pleasure in the olden joys—
The autumn is not as it used to be.
I hear the children shouting at their play!
Their hearts are happy, and they know not pain.
To them the day brings sunlight, and no shade.
And yet I would not be a child again.
For surely as the night succeeds the day,
So surely will their mirth turn into tears.
And I would not return to happy hours,
If I must live again these weary years.
I would walk on, and leave it all behind:
will walk on; and when my feet grow sore,
The boatman waits—his sails are all unfurled—
He waits to row me to a fairer shore.
My tired limbs shall rest on beds of down,
My tears shall all be wiped by Jesus’ hand;
My soul shall know the peace it long hath sought—
A peace too wonderful to understand.
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Of course I spent all day Wednesday trying (and failing) to catch up from being out of town! The laundry is only half-done, the luggage is only half-put away, and the cats have only half-forgiven us for leaving them for a few days even though they were fed and told they were pretty cats and good cats the whole time we were away. (And for anyone interested in adopting a kitten, the pair that Heather rescued are now weaned, so please contact me if you can give them a good home!)
We watched X-Men: Days of Future Past: The Rogue Cut, which I enjoyed a lot; even though it's longer, the directing is much more dynamic intercutting between the past and present timelines, so the pacing is more dramatic and Hank has much more to do. We're never going to catch up on all the TV we missed -- should we catch Limitless or Blindspot on demand? -- but we did see this week's Nashville, which is as soapy as ever. From the Star Wars costume exhibit at the EMP Museum:
Two Princess Leia guises from Return of the Jedi, with lengthy justification of the fact that she isn't really a sex object because she will eventually strangle her captor with her chains.
Two of Padme's outfits while visiting Anakin in Attack of the Clones, because what else would you wear to visit your celibate not-boyfriend besides a dress that will fall off if you sneeze?
"Devolving Palpatine" -- outfits worn by the Senator-Chancellor-Emperor as his evil becomes more pronounced.
Costumes from the Darth Maul fight from the end of The Phantom Menace.
Contrasting the simplicity of Leia's outfit vs. the complexities of her mother's.
Han, always taller than thinner than I expect, always shoots first.
These aren't the droids you're looking for, move along.
Apology accepted, Captain Needa.
