"I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year
'Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.'
And he replied, 'Go into the darkness and put your hand into the hand of God
That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way!..."
The complete version of the poem you can read in the "Pomegrante Seeds" blog.
Minnie Louise Haskins wrote the poem in 1908. She was an American lecturer at the London School of Economics and Political Science, who wrote as a hobby.
Born on 12 May 1875, she planned to retire in 1939 but was reappointed a year later and continued until 1944.“The Gate of the Year” was privately printed and circulated in a volume called The Desert. British Elizabeth, the late Queen Mother, loved the poem and showed it to her husband King George VI, who included it in his famous Christmas message broadcast in 1939 at the beginning of the Second World War.
Minnie Haskins was astonished to hear her poem being read by the King. 
Having caught public interest, the royalties that were earned from subsequent sales were given to charity.
After the King's death the Queen Mother had it engraved on a bronze plaques on the entrance to the King George VI Memorial Chapel, in Windsor.
And again, ‘The Gate of the Year’, the Queen Mother's favorite poem, was read during her funeral on 9 April 2002 when she was interned next to her husband.
