By Abraham Lincoln
My childhood home I see again,
And sadden with the view;
And still, as memory crowds my brain,
There's pleasure in it too.
O Memory! thou midway world
‘Twixt earth and paradise,
Where things decayed and loved ones lost
In dreamy shadows rise,
And, freed from all that's earthly vile,
Seem hallowed, pure, and bright,
Like scenes in some enchanted isle
All bathed in liquid light.
As dusky mountains please the eye
When twilight chases day;
As bugle-notes that, passing by,
In distance die away;
As leaving some grand waterfall,
We, lingering, list its roar—
So memory will hallow all
We've known, but know no more.
Near twenty years have passed away
Since here I bid farewell
To woods and fields, and scenes of play,
And playmates loved so well.
Where many were, but few remain
Of old familiar things;
But seeing them, to mind again
The lost and absent brings.
The friends I left that parting day,
How changed, as time has sped!
Young childhood grown, strong manhood gray,
And half of all are dead.
I hear the loved survivors tell
How nought from death could save,
Till every sound appears a knell,
And every spot a grave.
I range the fields with pensive tread,
And pace the hollow rooms,
And feel (companion of the dead)
I'm living in the tombs.
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On Saturday we got up, got organized, said hello to the bunny in our next door neighbor's yard, and went to College Park to pick up Adam so that we could all go see Captain America: Civil War together with a bunch of friends. We spotted goslings behind the Comcast Center, though we couldn't find any up close when we walked around the lake at Washingtonian looking for them after seeing a family from the garage. We hung out in line with Karen and Jim, Angela, Lena and Jack, and Katie for at least an hour before the very crowded movie.
No spoilers, but I loved pretty much everything about Civil War. The action sequences never went on too long and never felt gratuitous; one was filled with a lot of humor, mostly focused on two characters whose roles I hadn't expected to be so large, while another was extremely emotional and though it was brutal to watch, it made complete sense for where the characters were. Given that it was a film primarily about two men, the women's roles were good (I think it passed the Bechdel test less than five minutes in), and the funny bits never felt tacked on.
After the movie we all planned to get Mexican food, but the restaurant had nearly an hour wait, so instead we went to Union Jack's. Under normal circumstances I would have said it was much too loud in there, but it was entertaining to be in a place with at least a dozen large screens while the Nationals, Capitols, and various basketball games were being played plus the Kentucky Derby was being run (I knew nothing about any horse in the race). We stopped at home so Adam could give something to Christine, then drove him back to College Park and now we're watching Bones.
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