THE INWARD MORNING

By Henry D. Thoreau

Packed in my mind lie all the clothes

Which outward nature wears,

And in its fasion’s hourly change

It all things else repairs

In vain I look for change abroad,

And can no difference find,

Till som 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 news,

In the horizon of my mind

Have seen such orient hues,

As in the twilight of the dawn,

When the first 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.