The farther you journey and wander
  From the sweet simple faith of your youth,
The more you peer into the yonder
  And search for the root of all truth,
No matter what secrets you uncover
 Their veiled mystic brows in your quest,
Or close on your astral sight hover,
  Still, still you shall walk with unrest.

If you seek for strange things you shall find them,
  But the finding shall bring you to grief ;
The dead lock the portals behind them,
  And he who breaks through is a thief.
The soul with much ill-gotten plunder,
  With its premature knowledge oppressed,
Shall grope in unsatisfied wonder
  Always by the shores of unrest.

Though bold hands lift up the thin curtain
 That hides the unknown from our sight ;
Though a shadowy faith becomes certain
  Of the new light that follows death's night ;
Though miracles past comprehending
  Shall startle the heart in your breast,
Still, still will your thirst be unending,
  And your soul will be sad with unrest.

There are truths too sublime and too holy
  To grasp with a mortal mind's touch.
We are happier far to be lowly ;
  Content means not knowing too much.
Peace dwells not with hearts that are yearning
  To fathom all labyrinths unguessed,
And the soul that is bent on vast learning
  Shall find with its knowledge--unrest.

                 --Ella Wheeler Wilcox in Lippincott's