O my soul, I have taught thee to say “to-day” as “once on a time” and “formerly,” and to dance thy measure over every Here and There and Yonder. O my soul, I delivered thee from all by-places, I brushed down from thee dust and spiders and twilight. O my soul, I washed the petty shame and the by-place virtue from thee, and persuaded thee to stand naked before the eyes of the sun. With the storm that is called “spirit” did I blow over thy surging sea; all clouds did I blow away from it; I strangled even the strangler called “sin.” O my soul, I gave thee the right to say Nay like the storm, and to say Yea as the open heaven saith Yea: calm as the light remainest thou, and now walkest through denying storms. O my soul, I restored to thee liberty over the created and the uncreated; and who knoweth, as thou knowest, the voluptuousness of the future? O my soul, I taught thee the contempt which doth not come like worm-eating, the great, the loving contempt, which loveth most where it contemneth most. O my soul, I taught thee so to persuade that thou persuadest even the grounds themselves to thee: like the sun, which persuadeth even the sea to its height. O my soul, I have taken from thee all obeying and knee-bending and homage-paying; I have myself given thee the names, “Change of need” and “Fate.” O my soul, I have given thee new names and gay-coloured playthings, I have called thee “Fate” and “the Circuit of circuits” and “the Navel-string of time” and “the Azure bell.” O my soul, to thy domain gave I all wisdom to drink, all new wines, and also all immemorially old strong wines of wisdom. O my soul, every sun shed I upon thee, and every night and every silence and every longing:—then grewest thou up for me as a vine. O my soul, exuberant and heavy dost thou now stand forth, a vine with swelling udders and full clusters of brown golden grapes:— —Filled and weighted by thy happiness, waiting from superabundance, and yet ashamed of thy waiting. O my soul, there is nowhere a soul which could be more loving and more comprehensive and more extensive! Where could future and past be closer together than with thee? O my soul, I have given thee everything, and all my hands have become empty by thee:—and now! Now sayest thou to me, smiling and full of melancholy: “Which of us oweth thanks?— —Doth the giver not owe thanks because the receiver received? Is bestowing not a necessity? Is receiving not—pitying?”— O my soul, I understand the smiling of thy melancholy: thine over-abundance itself now stretcheth out longing hands! Thy fulness looketh forth over raging seas, and seeketh and waiteth: the longing of over-fulness looketh forth from the smiling heaven of thine eyes! And verily, O my soul! Who could see thy smiling and not melt into tears? The angels themselves melt into tears through the over-graciousness of thy smiling.