I know not what will befall me: God hangs a mist o’er my eyes;
And thus, each step of my onward path, He makes new scenes arise,
And every joy He sends to me comes like a sweet surprise.
I see not a step before me as I tread on another year;
But I ’ve left the past in God’s keeping,—the future His mercy shall clear,
And what looks dark in the distance...
Let my first Knowing be of thee
With morning's warming Light —
And my first Fearing, lest Unknowns
Engulf thee in the night —
Not knowing when the Dawn will come,
I open every Door,
Or has it Feathers, like a Bird,
Or Billows, like a Shore —
Wonder — is not precisely Knowing
And not precisely Knowing not —
A beautiful but bleak condition
He has not lived who has not felt —
Suspense — is his maturer Sister —
Whether Adult Delight is Pain
Or of itself a new misgiving —
This is the Gnat that mangles men —
