Poem for Tuesday, B&O Legos, Peter Pan

From 'Tintern Abbey'
By William Wordsworth

Five years have past; five summers, with the length
Of five long winters! and again I hear
These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs
With a soft inland murmur. -- Once again
Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs,
That on a wild secluded scene impress
Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect
The landscape with the quiet of the sky.
The day is come when I again repose
Here, under this dark sycamore, and view
These plots of cottage-ground, these orchard-tufts,
Which at this season, with their unripe fruits,
Are clad in one green hue, and lose themselves
'Mid groves and copses. Once again I see
These hedge-rows, hardly hedge-rows, little lines
Of sportive wood run wild: these pastoral farms,
Green to the very door; and wreaths of smoke
Sent up, in silence, from among the trees!
With some uncertain notice, as might seem
Of vagrant dwellers in the houseless woods,
Or of some Hermit's cave, where by his fire
The Hermit sits alone.
                          These beauteous forms,
Through a long absence, have not been to me
As is a landscape to a blind man's eye:
But oft, in lonely rooms, and 'mid the din
Of towns and cities, I have owed to them
In hours of weariness, sensations sweet,
Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart;
And passing even into my purer mind,
With tranquil restoration: -- feelings too
Of unremembered pleasure: such, perhaps,
As have no slight or trivial influence
On that best portion of a good man's life,
His little, nameless, unremembered, acts
Of kindness and of love. Nor less, I trust,
To them I may have owed another gift,
Of aspect more sublime; that blessed mood,
In which the burthen of the mystery,
In which the heavy and the weary weight
Of all this unintelligible world,
Is lightened: --that serene and blessed mood,
In which the affections gently lead us on, --
Until, the breath of this corporeal frame
And even the motion of our human blood
Almost suspended, we are laid asleep
In body, and become a living soul:
While with an eye made quiet by the power
Of harmony, and the deep power of joy,
We see into the life of things.

--------

I had a lovely Monday. Jules came over with the terribly arduous request that we watch Peter Pan, which she needed to see for a writing project, so I put myself through the difficult task of watching Jason Isaacs being a pirate with fairies that look like they dropped in out of a Maxfield Parrish painting. I adore that movie, and I also got to have lunch with Jules at California Pizza Kitchen, plus a bit of shopping in stores with things that smell good like Lush and Bath & Body Works. Adam stayed late at school for tech so I had lots of time.

Plus Paul worked from home because they're doing construction at his office and his car was in for an oil change, so in the afternoon we went to pick that up, then I took a walk on yet another absurdly warm gorgeous November day whose only drawback was how dark it was by 5 p.m. Evening TV included Terra Nova -- oh I hope they start tying up or at least explaining things before they get canceled for costing too much -- and the lopsided Saints-Giants game, plus Jon Stewart on American trends in pepper spray. Here are some photos of the history of Baltimore in Legos at the B&O Railroad Museum:


Downtown Baltimore, including the Bromo-Seltzer clock tower.


A waterside vendor selling crabs.


Near the Port of Baltimore, a motel with a swimming pool.


BWI Airport (you can tell this is older Baltimore from the lack of flight delays).


I am not entirely sure where this pastoral ruin is -- perhaps in the Walters Museum?


A downtown news chopper with reporter and cameraman.


Prehistoric Baltimore with cavemen...


...and even earlier, with dinosaurs and, er, mermaids.