The Night Song
It is night: now all leaping fountains speak more loudly. And my soul too is a leaping fountain.
It is night: only now do all the songs of lovers awaken. And my soul too is the song of a lover.
Something unstilled, unstillable is in me; it wants to be heard. A craving for love is in me, and it speaks the very language of love.
Light am I: ah, that I were night! But this is my loneliness, that I am girded round with light.
Ah, that I were dark and of the night! How I would suck at the breasts of light!
And even you I would bless, you little twinkling stars and glowworms up above!—and be blissful in your gifts of light.
But I live in my own light, I drink back into myself the flames that break out of me.
I do not know the happiness of those who take; and often I have dreamed that stealing must be more blissful still than taking.
This is my poverty, that my hand never rests from bestowing; this is my envy, that I see waiting eyes and the lit-up nights of longing.
O wretchedness of all who bestow! O eclipse of my sun! O craving to crave! O ravenous hunger in satiety!
They take from me: but do I still touch their soul? There is a gulf between giving and taking; and the smallest gulf is the last to be bridged.
A hunger grows out of my beauty: I would like to hurt those for whom I shine, I would like to rob those to whom I have given:—thus I hunger for malice.
Drawing back my hand when another hand already reaches out to it; hesitating like the waterfall that hesitates even as it plunges:—thus I hunger for malice.
Such revenge my fullness devises; such spite wells up out of my loneliness.
My happiness in bestowing died in bestowing, my virtue grew weary of itself in its overflow!
Whoever always bestows is in danger of losing his shame; whoever always deals out has calluses on hand and heart from sheer dealing out.
My eye no longer overflows at the shame of those who beg; my hand has grown too hard for the trembling of filled hands.
Where has the tear gone from my eye and the down from my heart? O loneliness of all who bestow! O silence of all who shine!
Many suns circle in empty space: to everything that is dark they speak with their light—to me they are silent.
Oh, this is the enmity of light against what shines: merciless it travels its courses.
In its deepest heart unjust toward what shines, cold toward suns—thus travels every sun.
Like a storm the suns fly along their courses: that is their traveling. Their inexorable will they follow: that is their coldness.
Oh, it is you alone, you dark ones, you of the night, who create warmth out of what shines! Oh, you alone drink milk and refreshment from the udders of light!
Ah, ice is around me, my hand burns itself on what is icy! Ah, thirst is in me that languishes for your thirst!
It is night: ah, that I must be light! And thirst for what is of the night! And loneliness!
It is night: now my longing breaks out of me like a well—I long for speech.
It is night: now all leaping fountains speak more loudly. And my soul too is a leaping fountain.
It is night: only now do all the songs of lovers awaken. And my soul too is the song of a lover.—
Thus sang Zarathustra.