“Little Angel” call they me!—
Now a ship, but once a girl,
Ah, and still too much a girl!
My steering-wheel, so bright to see,
For sake of love alone doth whirl.
Maiden’s Song
Yesterday with seventeen years
Wisdom reached I, a maiden fair,
I am grey-haired, it appears,
Now in all things—save my hair.
Yesterday, I had a thought,
Was’t a thought?—you laugh and scorn!
Did you ever have a thought?
Rather was a feeling born.
Dare a woman think? This screed
Wisdom long ago begot:
“Follow woman must, not lead;
If she thinks, she follows not.”
Wisdom speaks—I credit naught:
Rather hops and stings like flea:
“Woman seldom harbours thought;
If she thinks, no good is she!”
To this wisdom, old, renowned,
Bow I in deep reverence:
Now my wisdom I’ll expound
In its very quintessence.
A voice spoke in me yesterday
As ever—listen if you can:
“Woman is more beauteous aye,
But more interesting—man!”
Pia, Caritatevole, Amorosissima[7]
Cave where the dead ones rest,
O marble falsehood, thee
I love: for easy jest
My soul thou settest free.
To-day, to-day alone,
My soul to tears is stirred,
At thee, the pictured stone,
At thee, the graven word.
This picture (none need wis)
I kissed the other day.
When there’s so much to kiss
Why did I kiss the—clay?
Who knows the reason why?
“A tombstone fool!” you laugh:
I kissed—I’ll not deny—
E’en the long epitaph.
To Friendship
Hail to thee, Friendship!
My hope consummate,
My first red daybreak!
Alas, so endless
Oft path and night seemed,
And life’s long road
Aimless and hateful!
Now life I’d double
In thine eyes seeing
Dawn-glory, triumph,
Most gracious goddess!
Pine Tree And Lightning
O’er man and beast I grew so high,
And speak—but none will give reply.
Too lone and tall my crest did soar:
I wait: what am I waiting for?
The clouds are grown too nigh of late,
‘Tis the first lightning I await.
TREE IN AUTUMN
Why did ye, blockheads, me awaken
While I in blissful blindness stood?
Ne’er I by fear more fell was shaken—
Vanished my golden dreaming mood.
Bear-elephants, with trunks all greedy,
Knock first! Where have your manners fled?
I threw—and fear has made me speedy—
Dishes of ripe fruit—at your head.
AMONG FOES (OR AGAINST CRITICS)
(After a Gipsy Proverb)
Here the gallows, there the cord,
And the hangman’s ruddy beard.
Round, the venom-glancing horde:—
Nothing new to me’s appeared.
Many times I’ve seen the sight,
Now laughing in your face I cry,
“Hanging me is useless quite:
Die? Nay, nay, I cannot die!”
Beggars all! Ye envy me
Winning what ye never won!
True, I suffer agony,
But for you—your life is done.
Many times I’ve faced death’s plight,
Yet steam and light and breath am I.
Hanging me is useless quite:
Die? Nay, nay, I cannot die!
THE NEW COLUMBUS[8]
“Dearest,” said Columbus, “never
Trust a Genoese again.
At the blue he gazes ever,
Distance doth his soul enchain.
Strangeness is to me too dear—
Genoa has sunk and passed—
Heart, be cool! Hand, firmly steer!
Sea before me: land—at last?
Firmly let us plant our feet,
Ne’er can we give up this game—
From the distance what doth greet?
One death, one happiness, one fame.
IN LONESOMENESS[9]
The cawing crows
Townwards on whirring pinions roam;
Soon come the snows—
Thrice happy now who hath a home!
Fast-rooted there,
Thou gazest backwards—oh, how long!
Thou fool, why dare
Ere winter come, this world of wrong?
This world—a gate
To myriad deserts dumb and hoar!
Who lost through fate
What thou hast lost, shall rest no more.
Now stand’st thou pale,
A frozen pilgrimage thy doom,
Like smoke whose trail
Cold and still colder skies consume.
Fly, bird, and screech,
Like desert-fowl, thy song apart!
Hide out of reach,
Fool! in grim ice thy bleeding heart.
Firmly let us plant our feet,
Ne’er can we give up this game—
From the distance what doth greet?
One death, one happiness, one fame.
The cawing crows
Townwards on whirring pinions roam:
Soon come the snows—
Woe unto him who hath no home!
My Answer
The man presumes—
Good Lord!—to think that I’d return
To those warm rooms
Where snug the German ovens burn
My friend, you see
‘Tis but thy folly drives me far,—
Pity for thee
And all that German blockheads are!
VENICE
ON the bridge I stood,
Mellow was the night,
Music came from far—
Drops of gold outpoured
On the shimmering waves.
Song, gondolas, light,
Floated a-twinkling out into the dusk.
The chords of my soul, moved
By unseen impulse, throbbed
Secretly into a gondola song,
With thrills of bright-hued ecstasy.
Had I a listener there?
[1] Translated by Herman Scheffauer.
[2] Translated by Herman Scheffauer.
[3] This poem was written on the betrothal of one of Nietzsche’s Bâle friends.—TR.
[4] Translated by Herman Scheffauer.
[5] Campo Santo di Staglieno is the cemetery of Staglieno, near Genoa. The poem was inspired by the sight of a girl with a lamb on the tombstone, with the words underneath— “Pia, caritatevole, amorosissima.”
[6] Published by Nietzsche himself. The poem was inspired by a ship that was christened Angiolina, in memory of a love-sick girl who leapt into the sea.—TR.
[7] See above, p. 157. Both poems were inspired by the same tombstone.—TR.
[8] The Genoese is Nietzsche himself, who lived a great part of his life at Genoa.—TR.
[9] Translated by Herman Scheffauer.
EPIGRAMS
CAUTION: POISON![1]
He who cannot laugh at this had better not start reading;
For if he read and do not laugh, physic he’ll be needing!
HOW TO FIND ONE’S COMPANY
With jesters it is good to jest:
Who likes to tickle, is tickled best.
THE WORD
I dearly love the living word,
That flies to you like a merry bird,
Ready with pleasant nod to greet,
E’en in misfortune welcome, sweet,
Yet it has blood, can pant you deep:
Then to the dove’s ear it will creep:
And curl itself, or start for flight—
Whate’er it does, it brings delight.
Yet tender doth the word remain,
Soon it is ill, soon well again:
So if its little life you’d spare,
O grasp it lightly and with care,
Nor heavy hand upon it lay,
For e’en a cruel glance would slay!
There it would lie, unsouled, poor thing!
All stark, all formless, and all cold,
Its little body changed and battered,
By death and dying rudely shattered.
A dead word is a hateful thing,
A barren, rattling, ting-ting-ting.
A curse on ugly trades I cry
That doom all little words to die!
THE WANDERER AND HIS SHADOW
A Book
You’ll ne’er go on nor yet go back?
Is e’en for chamois here no track?
So here I wait and firmly clasp
What eye and hand will let me grasp!
Five-foot-broad ledge, red morning’s breath,
And under me—world, man, and death!
JOYFUL WISDOM
This is no book—for such, who looks?
Coffins and shrouds, naught else, are books!
What’s dead and gone they make their prey,
Yet in my book lives fresh To-day.
This is no book—for such, who looks?
Who cares for coffins, shrouds, and spooks?
This is a promise, an act of will,
A last bridge-breaking, for good or ill;
A wind from sea, an anchor light,
A whirr of wheels, a steering right.
The cannon roars, white smokes its flame,
The sea—the monster—laughs and scents its game.
DEDICATION[2]
He who has much to tell, keeps much
Silent and unavowed.
He who with lightning-flash would touch
Must long remain a cloud!
THE NEW TESTAMENT[3]
Is this your Book of Sacred Lore,
For blessing, cursing, and such uses?—
Come, come now: at the very door
God some one else’s wife seduces?
THE “TRUE GERMAN”
“O Peuple des meillures Tartuffes,
To you I’m true, I wis.”
He spoke, but in the swiftest skiff
Went to Cosmopolis.
TO THE DARWINIANS[4]
A fool this honest Britisher
Was not … But a Philosopher!
As that you really rate him?
Set Darwin up by Goethe’s side?
But majesty you thus deride—
Genii majestatem!
To HAFIZ
(Toast Question of a Water-Drinker)
What you have builded, yonder inn,
O’ertops all houses high:
The posset you have brewed therein
The world will ne’er drink dry.
The bird that once appeared on earth
As phœnix, is your, guest.
The mouse that gave a mountain birth
Is you yourself confessed!
You’re all and naught, you’re inn and wine,
You’re phœnix, mountain, mouse.
Back to yourself to come you pine
Or fly from out your house.
Downward from every height you’ve sunk,
And in the depths still shine:
The drunkenness of all the drunk,
Why do you ask for—wine?
TO SPINOZA
Of “All in One” a fervent devotee
Amore Dei, of reasoned piety,
Doff shoes! A land thrice holy this must be!—
Yet underneath this love there sate
A torch of vengeance, burning secretly
The Hebrew God was gnawed by Hebrew hate.
Hermit! Do I aright interpret thee?
ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER
That which he taught, has had its day,
That which he lived, shall live for aye:
Look at the man! No bondsman he!
Nor e’er to mortal bowed his knee!
TO RICHARD WAGNER
O You who chafe at every fetter’s link,
A restless spirit, never free:
Who, though victorious aye, in bonds still cowered,
Disgusted more and more, and flayed and scoured,
Till from each cup of balm you poison drink,
Alas! and by the Cross all helpless sink,
You too, you too, among the overpowered!
For long I watched this play so weirdly shaped,
Breathing an air of prison, vault, and dread,
With churchly fragrance, clouds of incense spread,
And yet I found all strange/in terror gaped.
But now I throw my fool’s cap o’er my head,
For I escaped!
MUSIC OF THE SOUTH[5]
All that my eagle e’er saw clear,
I see and feel in heart to-day
(Although my hope was wan and gray)
Thy song like arrow pierced mine ear,
A balm to touch, a balm to hear,
As down from heaven it winged its way.
So now for lands of southern fire
To happy isles where Grecian nymphs hold sport!
Thither now turn the ship’s desire—
No ship e’er sped to fairer port.
A RIDDLE
A riddle here—can you the answer scent?
“When man discovers, woman must invent.”——
TO FALSE FRIENDS
You stole, your eye’s not clear to-day.
You only stole a thought, sir? nay,
Why be so rudely modest, pray?
Here, take another handful—stay,
Take all I have, you swine—you may
Eat till your filth is purged away.
FRIEND YORICK
Be of good cheer,
Friend Yorick! If this thought gives pain,
As now it does, I fear,
Is it not “God”? And though in error lain,
‘Tis but your own dear child,
Your flesh and blood,
That tortures you and gives you pain,
Your little rogue and do-no-good,
See if the rod will change its mood!
In brief, friend Yorick, leave that drear
Philosophy—and let me now
Whisper one word as medicine,
My own prescription, in your ear,
My remedy against such spleen—
“Who loves his God, chastises him, I ween,”
RESOLUTION
I should be wise to suit my mood,
Not at the beck of other men:
God made as stupid as he could
The world—well, let me praise him then.
And if I make not straight my track,
But, far as may be, wind and bend,
That’s how the sage begins his tack,
And that is how the fool will—end.
The world stands never still,
Night loves the glowing
