Even our present way is known to ourselves alone,
Height and abyss and torrent, flower and thorn and stone;
But we gaze on another's path as a far-off mountain scene,
Scanning the outlined hills, but never the vales between.
How shall we judge their present, we who have never seen
That which is past forever, and that which might have been?
Measuring by ourselves, unwise indeed are we,
Measuring what we know by what we can hardly see.
Ah! if we knew it all, we should surely understand