Summer Nights

I remember nights like this –

On a still, still summer evening.

Ten o’clock but blue the sky

With one bright star, or a new moon

Shining. The air so still.

 

And I never thought then, when a

Chance task took me out of doors

To the unexpected beauty of it all –

(Not just that, but the ethereal peace

That only still evenings like this bring) –

 

No, I never thought then

That I would ever find again

That same enchanted evening stillness,

That same super-human beauty

Here, in this foreign land.

 

I thought that I had left it all,

The enchanted place, loved by the gods.

But though I had left

It had not left me!

Beauty is everywhere, if only we see.

 

Our eyes are but windows

The heart is the mirror:

It’s not what you see but

The way that you see it

That leads to the beauty

That resides in our being.