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.
Wendell Berry (1934-)
‘The Peace of Wild Things’ is the seeking of nature’s wildness to counter the effect of the world’s woes on the mind of the despairing poet.
Despite Berry’s Christian faith, this poem does not directly or clearly connect the natural world with the supernatural. However, ‘the presence of still water’ (line 8) could be said to be reminiscent of Psalm 23:2 where ‘he [the Lord] leads me beside quiet waters’. Also, ‘I rest in the grace of the world, and am free’ (final line) sounds quasi-biblical; but, of course, grace in the Bible is God’s grace, not the apparently alternative meaning here.
The observation about ‘the peace of wild things / who do not tax their lives with forethought / of grief’ (lines 6 to 8) is clearly meant for us to seek to aspire to and emulate, if it were possible.