I read the sign. Which way shall I go ? A voice says: you would not have doubted so at twenty. another voice gentle with scorn says: At twenty you wished you had never been born... At any age between death and birth,---To see what day or night can be, the sun and the frost, the land and the sea, Summer, Autumn, Winter, Spring--- with a poor man of any sort, down to a king, standing upright out in the air wondering where he shall journey, O where?

I have come to the border of sleep,
The unfathomable deep
Forest where all must lose
Their way, however straight,
Or winding, soon or late,
They cannot choose.

Many a road and track
That, since the dawn's first crack,
Up to the forest brink,
Deceived the travellers
Suddenly now blurs,
And in they sink.

Here love ends,
Despair, ambition ends,
All pleasure and trouble,
Although most sweet or bitter,
Here ends in sleep that is sweeter
Than tasks most noble.