Soft Summer Evenings

By Turney Stevens, Dean

"To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees, And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core; To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells With a sweet kernel; to set budding more, And still more, later flowers for the bees, Until they think warm days will never cease..."




When John Keats penned these words in 1819, he was 23 and was less than two years from his death. For him, the "warm days" did cease, in fact all too soon.

In that summer of 1819, he must have been writing his verses somewhere near Oxford because, here, on this 2011 mid-summer day when I'm penning my words, the flowers and trees blossom so spectacularly that one might indeed think summer will never cease.

But, of course, it will end and the seasons will soon change again here at Oxford as they have for the more than 800 summers since the university was founded.

It's the lovely and historic buildings at Oxford that often receive most of the attention by the 1.3 million annual visitors who come here to marvel over such remarkable sites as the medieval chapel where Charles I hid out from the pursuing Oliver Cromwell.

Or the quaint, upper story chamber at Christ Church College where John Wesley formulated the reformation thoughts that he espoused from the pulpit of the church just across the street and which became, literally, the "First" Methodist Church.

All of these historic sights, as impressive as they are, pale against the breathtaking beauty of the flowers. And the blossoming trees. And the emerald green lawns on which cricket and croquet and rugby are played on these spectacular summer afternoons.



The University of Oxford lies in west-central England, in a region of the country known as the Cotswolds. Spreading across an area that lies mainly in two counties, Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire, the region is relatively small measuring only about 20 miles by 90 miles.

When one thinks of romantic England, it's the Cotswolds that come to mind. When one thinks of the classic English garden, most likely the picture is one taken in a garden in or around Oxford or one of the other Costwold villages.

Shakespeare lived nearby in Stratford, located hard by the Avon River. Percy Bysshe Shelley studied at University College, Oxford, and wrote his first poems in the shade of the university's beautiful summer foliage.



The lovely villages of the Cotswolds, never more beautiful nor more romantic than upon a mid summer's eve, have inspired generations.

And so they have had the same intoxicating effect on this business dean, who spends his days and many of his nights caught up in the world of profits and metrics and strategies.

For just this week, I've walked among the blossoms. And sat quietly in the shade of the groaning oaks. And dreamed of rhymes, and stanzas, and words of inexpressible beauty.

Maybe, if the mood will only survive the long trip home and the return to the world of Blackberrys and iPads, leaving behind this mystical world of "moss'd cottage trees" then maybe, just maybe, I'll turn off "American Idol" this winter and read a little Keats.

And think again of soft summer evenings and afternoon walks along the gentle Thames.

Life, much as summer, will end all too soon.