Friedrich Nietzsche: Thus Spake Zarathustra

FOURTH AND LAST PART. 79. LXXIX. THE DRUNKEN SONG. (continued)

COME! COME! COME! LET US NOW WANDER! IT IS THE HOUR: LET US WANDER INTO THE NIGHT!

3.

Ye higher men, it is getting on to midnight: then will I say something into your ears, as that old clock-bell saith it into mine ear,--

--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!

4.

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!"