One night, with some unquietness and dread,
And fear of boding ill within my soul,
I fell to sleep; before me, like a scroll,
Lay bare the coming years. In them I read,
Clear writ as in a book or chart, the vast
Futurity, with all its joy and grief,
Success and failure, love, hate, unbelief
And faith, and that blind parting at the last;
Whereat my soul recoiled, nor could it bear
To muse on so much labor; better far
Not to have been, or else to be perchance
Like a dumb brute, existence without care
Or consciousness; but with the morning star
I woke, and thanked God for my ignorance.