Poem for Sunday and Maryland Colors

To The Memory Of Raisley Calvert
By William Wordsworth

Calvert! it must not be unheard by them
Who may respect my name, that I to thee
Owed many years of early liberty.
This care was thine when sickness did condemn
Thy youth to hopeless wasting, root and stem--
That I, if frugal and severe, might stray
Where'er I liked; and finally array
My temples with the Muse's diadem.
Hence, if in freedom I have loved the truth;
If there be aught of pure, or good, or great,
In my past verse; or shall be, in the lays
Of higher mood, which now I meditate;--
It gladdens me, O worthy, short-lived, Youth!
To think how much of this will be thy praise.

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I am sleepy because I did a lot of walking in the woods on Saturday, first visiting the Battle Creek Cypress Swamp near Prince Frederick, then at Calvert Cliffs State Park, where the cliffs are reached by hiking two miles each way along paths and boardwalks straddling the wetlands and ponds created by beavers (which hikers near us spotted, though the beavers had ducked underwater by the time we reached the spot). The weather was magnificent, around 60 degrees without a cloud in the sky. Leaves were falling like raindrops in a couple of places and the trees were blowing in the breeze, creaking together like Ents. We had a picnic before the long walk down to the beach, where the Chesapeake Bay was too chilly to take our shoes off and do any serious hunting for shark's teeth but it was a perfect afternoon to watch the occasional boats and the lighthouse across the water.

















Of course we got stuck in traffic driving home since the Terrapins were playing the Fighting Irish at Fed Ex Field (a game that Maryland lost by 24 points as well as losing their quarterback for the season to a wrist injury; despite being 20 minutes from their home stadium, Notre Dame was considered the home team, wearing golden helmets so shiny that the poor blinded fans will have to shut up about the Terps' colorful state pride uniforms). I generally loathe Nebraska but I did root for them over Penn State today; I feel sorry for the players, but the way the news talks about all the poor victimized people of Happy Valley as though the fans and not the boys are the victims of the behavior of the team leaders makes me queasy. Adam had dinner with friends while Paul and I had eggplant parmesan, then we half-watched the Oregon-Stanford game and now I am going to sleep!