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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Paul and I went downtown on Sunday with Cheryl and Robert to see Dave, the musical based on the Kevin Kline movie about a presidential lookalike who is asked to impersonate the president when the latter suffers brain death and his staff doesn't trust the VP to keep them around. The musical is hilarious, the cast is great, and the songs are very catchy; as you'd expect, it's somewhat hokey at times but the use of the stage is terrific and I'm never going to complain about a musical that ends by reminding everyone to vote out bombastic liars. There are many jokes about the current unscrupulous idiot in the White House and even a Nationals game in the show.
It's not Hamilton, but it's nice to see a musical where people talk to paintings of Lincoln and argue with 19th century presidents. Afterward we went out to dinner and came back to the house to see whether Cheryl or Robert wanted any of my big old Playbill collection or theater books. After they left to drive home, Paul and I did some cleaning (we have a freaking wasp nest in the front yard) and watched the miserable season finale of Succession, a show about the most unpleasant family ever. Obviously there were no photos inside the theater, but here are a couple of the waterfront-area view from inside the complex, which houses two other stages, and the regional theater's Tony Awards:
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