My Thoughts

Many are the thoughts that come to me
In my lonely musing;
And they drift so strange and swift,
There's no time for choosing
Which to follow, for to leave
Any, seems a losing.

When they come, they come in flocks,
As on glancing feather,
Startled birds rise one by one
In autumnal weather,
Waking one another up
From the sheltering heather.

Some so merry that I laugh,
Some are grave and serious,
Some so trite, their least approach
Is enough to weary us:
Others flit like midnight ghosts,
Shrouded and mysterious.

There are thoughts that o'er me steal,
Like the day when dawning;
Great thoughts winged with melody
common utterance scorning,
Moving in an inward tune,
And an inward morning.

Some have dark and drooping wings,
Children all of sorrow;
Some are as gay, as if today
Could see no cloudy morrow,
And yet, like light and shade, they each
Must from the other borrow.

One by one they come to me
On their destined mission;
One by one I see them fade
With no hopeless vision;
For they've led me on a step
To their home Elysian.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson