Off down the road

There is something in Southern summer evenings...tonight I went to hear a concert that culminated in a beautiful performance of Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue. When the concert ended it was about 8:30, but there was still a great deal of light. Light fades so slowly on summer evenings here. It's my favorite part of summer, long sunset followed by long twilight followed by long dusk. The last few minutes of my drive took me through unlit, deserted country roads, and there were hundreds and hundreds of fireflies. It brought to mind one of my favorite poems by J.R.R. Tolkien (it's really a pity he grew to dislike it so much himself). It's the loveliest expression of how beauty tugs at the heart and hints at Otherworldliness.

Goblin Feet
J.R.R. Tolkien

I am off down the road
Where the fairy lanterns glowed
And the little pretty flitter-mice are flying:
A slender band of grey
It runs creepily away
And the hedges and the grasses are a-sighing.
The air is full of wings,
And of blundery beetle-things
That warn you with their whirring and their humming.
O! I hear the tiny horns
Of enchanted leprechauns
And the padded feet of many gnomes a-coming!

O! the lights: O! the gleams: O! the little tinkly sounds:
O! the rustle of their noiseless little robes:
O! the echo of their feet -- of their happy little feet:
O! their swinging lamps in little starlit globes.

I must follow in their train
Down the crooked fairy lane
Where the coney-rabbits long ago have gone,
And where silverly they sing
In a moving moonlit ring
All a twinkle with the jewels they have on.
They are fading round the turn
Where the glow worms palely burn
And the echo of their padding feet is dying!

O! it's knocking at my heart--
Let me go! O let me start!
For the little magic hours are all a-flying.

O! the warmth! O! the hum! O! the colours in the dark!
O! the gauzy wings of golden honey-flies!
O! the music of their feet - of their dancing goblin feet!
O! the magic! O! the sorrow when it dies.

Go ahead, roll your eyes. I saw fairy lanterns tonight, and I loved it.