The Intoxicated Song

... "....Midnight is coming on:
so will I say something in your ears,
as that old bell says it in my ear,

... as secretly, as fearfully,
as warmly as that midnight bell tells it to me,
which has experienced more than one man:

... which hath already counted your fathers' painful heartbeats -
ah! ah! how it sighs! how in dreams it laughs!
the ancient, deep, deep midnight!

... Soft! Soft!
Then many a thing can be heard which may speak by day;
but now, in the cool air,
when all the clamour of your hearts, too, has grown still,

... now it speaks, now it is heard,
now it creeps into nocturnal, over-wakeful souls:
ah! ah! how it sighs! how in dreams it laughs!

... do you not hear,
how secretly, fearfully, warmly it speaks to you,
the ancient, deep, deep midnight?

O Man! Attend!"


Friedrich Nietzsche,
(1844-1900)
"Thus Spoke Zarathustra", The Intoxicated Song, R.J.Hollingdale translation