—As mysteriously, as frightfully, and as cordially as that midnight clock-bell speaketh it to me, which hath experienced more than one man:
—Which hath already counted the smarting throbbings of your fathers’ hearts—ah! ah! how it sigheth! how it laugheth in its dream! the old, deep, deep midnight!
Hush! Hush! Then is there many a thing heard which may not be heard by day; now however, in the cool air, when even all the tumult of your hearts hath become still—
—Now doth it speak, now is it heard, now doth it steal into overwakeful, nocturnal souls: ah! ah! how the midnight sigheth! how it laugheth in its dream!
—Hearest thou not how it mysteriously, frightfully, and cordially speaketh unto thee, the old deep, deep midnight?
O man, take heed!
IV
Woe to me! Whither hath time gone? Have I not sunk into deep wells? The world sleepeth—
Ah! Ah! The dog howleth, the moon shineth. Rather will I die, rather will I die, than say unto you what my midnight-heart now thinketh.
Already have I died. It is all over. Spider, why spinnest thou around me? Wilt thou have blood? Ah! Ah! The dew falleth, the hour cometh—
—The hour in which I frost and freeze, which asketh and asketh and asketh: “Who hath sufficient courage for it?
“—Who is to be master of the world? Who is going to say: Thus shall ye flow, ye great and small streams!”
—The hour approacheth: O man, thou higher man, take heed! this talk is for fine ears, for thine ears—what saith deep midnight’s voice indeed?
V
It carrieth me away, my soul danceth. Day’s-work! Day’s-work! Who is to be master of the world?
The moon is cool, the wind is still. Ah! Ah! Have ye already flown high enough? Ye have danced: a leg, nevertheless, is not a wing.
Ye good dancers, now is all delight over: wine hath become lees, every cup hath become brittle, the sepulchres mutter.
Ye have not flown high enough: now do the sepulchres mutter: “Free the dead! Why is it so long night? Doth not the moon make us drunken?”
Ye higher men, free the sepulchres, awaken the corpses! Ah, why doth the worm still burrow? There approacheth, there approacheth, the hour—
—There boometh the clock-bell, there thrilleth still the heart, there burroweth still the woodworm, the heart-worm. Ah! Ah! The world is deep!
VI
Sweet lyre! Sweet lyre! I love thy tone, thy drunken, ranunculine tone!—how long, how far hath come unto me thy tone, from the distance, from the ponds of love!
Thou old clock-bell, thou sweet lyre! Every pain hath torn thy heart, father-pain, fathers’-pain, forefathers’-pain; thy speech hath become ripe—
—Ripe like the golden autumn and the afternoon, like mine anchorite heart—now sayest thou: The world itself hath become ripe, the grape turneth brown,
—Now doth it wish to die, to die of happiness. Ye higher men, do ye not feel it? There welleth up mysteriously an odour,
—A perfume and odour of eternity, a rosy-blessed, brown, gold-wine-odour of old happiness,
—Of drunken midnight-death happiness, which singeth: the world is deep, and deeper than the day could read!
VII
Leave me alone! Leave me alone! I am too pure for thee. Touch me not! Hath not my world just now become perfect?
My skin is too pure for thy hands. Leave me alone, thou dull, doltish, stupid day! Is not the midnight brighter?
The purest are to be masters of the world, the least known, the strongest, the midnight-souls, who are brighter and deeper than any day.
O day, thou gropest for me? Thou feelest for my happiness? For thee am I rich, lonesome, a treasure-pit, a gold chamber?
O world, thou wantest me? Am I worldly for thee? Am I spiritual for thee? Am I divine for thee? But day and world, ye are too coarse—
—Have cleverer hands, grasp after deeper happiness, after deeper unhappiness, grasp after some God; grasp not after me:
—Mine unhappiness, my happiness is deep, thou strange day, but yet am I no God, no God’s-hell: deep is its woe.
VIII
God’s woe is deeper, thou strange world! Grasp at God’s woe, not at me! What am I! A drunken sweet lyre—
—A midnight-lyre, a bell-frog, which no one understandeth, but which must speak before deaf ones, ye higher men! For ye do not understand me!
Gone! Gone! O youth! O noontide! O afternoon! Now have come evening and night and midnight—the dog howleth, the wind:
—Is the wind not a dog? It whineth, it barketh, it howleth. Ah! Ah! how she sigheth! how she laugheth, how she wheezeth and panteth, the midnight!
How she just now speaketh soberly, this drunken poetess! hath she perhaps overdrunk her drunkenness? hath she become overawake? doth she ruminate?
—Her woe doth she ruminate over, in a dream, the old, deep midnight—and still more her joy. For joy, although woe be deep, joy is deeper still than grief can be.
IX
Thou grapevine! Why dost thou praise me? Have I not cut thee! I am cruel, thou bleedest—: what meaneth thy praise of my drunken cruelty?
“Whatever hath become perfect, everything mature—wanteth to die!” so sayest thou. Blessed, blessed be the vintner’s knife! But everything immature wanteth to live: alas!
Woe saith: “Hence! Go! Away, thou woe!” But everything that suffereth wanteth to live, that it may become mature and lively and longing,
—Longing for the further, the higher, the brighter. “I want heirs,” so saith everything that suffereth, “I want children, I do not want myself,”—
Joy, however, doth not want heirs, it doth not want children—joy wanteth itself, it wanteth eternity, it wanteth recurrence, it wanteth everything eternally-like-itself.
Woe saith: “Break, bleed, thou heart! Wander, thou leg! Thou wing, fly! Onward! upward! thou pain!” Well! Cheer up! O mine old heart: Woe saith: “Hence! Go!”
X
Ye higher men, what think ye? Am I a soothsayer? Or a dreamer? Or a drunkard? Or a dream-reader? Or a midnight-bell?
Or a drop of dew?
