Serenade

Sure on this shining night
Of star-made shadows round
Kindness must watch for me
This side the ground

I expected to feel sad
knowing that it was the last time
that we would sit in the Great Cloister
on a warm summer evening in July
listening to the music of the Serenade.


The late year lies down the north,
All is healed, all is health
High summer holdsthe earth,
Hearts all whole

I discovered that the sounds
and the silences
are all locked away in my heart.


Sure on this shining night
I weep for wonder
Wandr'ing far alone
Of shadows on the stars.

At the very end of the evening
the roosting pigeons were startled
and flew upwards into the cobalt sky
through the arc of lights,
the undersides of their wings bright gold.


I thought that I had never seen anything so beautiful.

Sure on this Shining Night
Morton Lauridsen