—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? 5. 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 wood-worm, the heart-worm. Ah! Ah! THE WORLD IS DEEP! 6. 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! 7. 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. 8. 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!