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# The Waking
- URL: https://poetry101.love/the-waking/
- Published: 2022-11-24T03:56:00.000Z
- Updated: 2022-11-26T03:57:41.000Z
- Description: by Theodore Roethke
- Author: Melissa Anderson
- Tags: #Import 2026-11-04 19:11

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.   
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.   
I learn by going where I have to go.  
  
We think by feeling. What is there to know?   
I hear my being dance from ear to ear.   
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.  
  
Of those so close beside me, which are you?   
God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there,   
And learn by going where I have to go.  
  
Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?   
The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;   
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.  
  
Great Nature has another thing to do   
To you and me; so take the lively air,   
And, lovely, learn by going where to go.  
  
This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.   
What falls away is always. And is near.   
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.   
I learn by going where I have to go.

Roethke, Theodore, and Hirsch, Edward. [Theodore Roethke: Selected Poems: (American Poets Project #16)](https://www.google.com/books/edition/Theodore%5FRoethke%5FSelected%5FPoems/pdxlAAAAMAAJ?kptab=getbook&ref=poetry101.love). United States, Library of America, 2005.