Poem for Wednesday

Freedom
By Helen Hunt Jackson

What freeman knoweth freedom? Never he
Whose father's father through long lives have reigned
O'er kingdoms which mere heritage attained.
Though from his youth to age he roam as free
As winds, he dreams not freedom's ecstacy.
But he whose birth was in a nation chained
For centuries; where every breath was drained
From breasts of slaves which knew not there could be
Such thing as freedom,--he beholds the light
Burst, dazzling; though the glory blind his sight
He knows the joy. Fools laugh because he reels
And weilds confusedly his infant will;
The wise man watching with a heart that feels
Says: "Cure for freedom's harms is freedom still."

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I did nothing today but feel horrible, nap and do laundry. Couldn't even concentrate to watch TV. Dementor Delta tried valiantly to cheer me up long distance with porn conversation but even smut chatting is difficult when I can't keep my head up. I am so, so sick of being sick.


This statue of Abraham Lincoln is pointing out to a fictional passerby the building where he finished writing the Gettysburg Address.


The statue of the tourist is holding a copy of the Gettysburg Address, which Lincoln read at the dedication of the Soldiers' National Cemetery in Gettysburg on November 19th, 1863.


The house being repaired in the top photo, at which Lincoln is pointing his hat here, is the Wills House, then the largest house in the town square. Lincoln stayed there overnight before the dedication.


"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure."


The Wills House stands next to the Masonic Building...


...across the square from the Gettysburg Hotel, opened in 1797 as a tavern.

Watched The History Channel's The Universe: "Secrets of the Sun" and "Constellations," both of which were terrific even though I had trouble concentrating, then watched Boston Legal which I will have to recap tomorrow because I can't keep my eyes open.