Nescio at Felix.

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.