I am a spark of eternity. Beyond the cold ashes I shall exist even to the dawn, ... And then in my own embers shall I wax in brightness, glow as gold and burn as ruby; I shall pass through the grayness of the dust of this my bed, and before the rosy dawn shall have bathed herself in dew, before the sun shall have lifted his golden gaze from beyond the sea, I shall strike into the flames of life. III. How many dawns, how many twilights have I passed? Do I know it myself? Through how many gates of body and of soul have I entered into life, as an eternal voyager, who is born daily, now here, now there, from the sleep of death, in the earliest morn. And then, exhausted, I departed to the West, through the great twilight dusk, which, all blazing with gold and red as blood, led me into the silent fields of blue, upon the dreamy meadows of the moon, all heaving with the beating of the wings of Psyche-butterflies, where I sought my sleep, and my head leaning on eternity's great bosom, I rested after a life and before a life. IV. Myself—the gate, and myself—the path, once only in this cycle have I issued from the Divine Light. Once only blew its breath for all bodies and souls, once only has it in the morning of Day opened its bosom of luminous archetypal thought,—and all subsequent myriads of forms, before and now, were sculptured by myself. Lo! I emerge from the conflagration of blood; I come in the likeness of a child, I who am a lion, crouching for the powers of the heavens and of the earth. And I depart into the night, through the blood and through the pain, crouching as a shadow, for the dawn and for the day. After a time, after a moment I increase in strength, I spring up in the dust. My germ of existence now feels hunger of life; it attracts life's forces and lifts green blades above the grave. The sun now warms it for a new day of its immortal labor. V. With no gift am I favored in my early hour. All my radiance have I spun myself through many nights and shadows. And all my powers upon the earth and in the heavens have I obtained from my own mystic depths. Every form I have, it is of ages' toil, it is an effort of many births, a battle of many darkling deaths. What light have I, by a promethean labor, through thousand lives, spark by spark have I stolen it from the sun, spark by spark have I seized it from the blushes of the morning. The rosy coral of the dawns, and lilies' whiteness have I plucked unseen in the gardens of the night from the silvery stars. There is no color and no sound upon the waving meadows, among the nests of eagles or of nightingales, which through the ages, in ruins' coldness and scorching heat of life I have not worked out from a laughter to a groan,—alive by my own self. VI. And my right is to upwards grow through all the worlds. And my right is to expand my heart through all the worlds. In storms, in silence I burst the bars of death's prisons, and strike the metal of the all-awakening bell!