“Entering the Unknown” was inspired by the poem, “The Gate of the Year”, which Minnie Louise Haskins (1875-1957) wrote in 1908. It is widely interpreted as describing the transition from the known to an unknown world and has been used at many funerals including the Queen Mother’s on 9th April 2002. King George VI quoted it in his 1939 Christmas speech as war was looming. The state of the world today gives rise, perhaps, to trepidation. The music follows the text fairly closely, with the unknown signified by augmented F chords. The poem begins: 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.’