The Peace of Wild Things

When despair of for the world grows in me
And I wake in the night at the least sound
In fear of what my life and my children's live may be;
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water,
and the great heron feeds
I come into the place of wild things
who do not tax their lives for thought of grief
I come into the presence of the still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their lights, for a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

- Wendell Berry