The Peace of Wild Things When despair 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 lives 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 peace of wild things Who do not tax their lives with forethought Of grief. I come into the presence of still water. And I feel above me the day-blind stars Waiting with their light. For a time I rest in the grace of the world, And am free.