Packed in my mind lie all the clothes

⁠Which outward nature wears,

And in its fashion's hourly change

⁠It all things else repairs.

 

In vain I look for change abroad,

⁠And can no difference find,

Till some new ray of peace uncalled

⁠Illumes my inmost mind.

 

What is it gilds the trees and clouds,

⁠And paints the heavens so gay,

But yonder fast-abiding light

⁠With its unchanging ray?

 

Lo, when the sun streams through the wood,

⁠Upon a winter's morn,

Where'er his silent beams intrude

⁠The murky night is gone.

 

How could the patient pine have known

⁠The morning breeze would come,

Or humble flowers anticipate

⁠The insect's noonday hum,—

 

Till the new light with morning cheer

⁠From far streamed through the aisles,

And nimbly told the forest trees

⁠For many stretching miles?

 

I've heard within my inmost soul

⁠Such cheerful morning news,

In the horizon of my mind

⁠Have seen such orient hues,

 

As in the twilight of the dawn,

⁠When the first birds awake,

Are heard within some silent wood,

⁠Where they the small twigs break,

 

Or in the eastern skies are seen,

⁠Before the sun appears,

The harbingers of summer heats

⁠Which from afar he bears.

“The Inward Morning,’’ by Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862), of Concord, Mass.