Ecce Homo Complete Works, Volume Seventeen · Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
OF THE POVERTY OF THE RICHEST
Ten years passed by-- Not a drop reached me, No rain-fraught wind, no dew of love --A rainless land.... Now entreat I my wisdom Not to become stingy in this drought; Overflow thyself, trickle thy dew, Be thyself the rain of the parched wilderness! I once bade the clouds Depart from my mountains; Once I said to them, "More light, ye dark ones!" To-day I entice them to come: Make me dark with your udders: --I would milk you, Ye cows of the heights! Milk-warm wisdom, sweet dew of love I pour over the land. Away, away, ye truths That look so gloomy! I will not have on my mountains Bitter, impatient truths. May truth approach me to-day Gilded by smiles, Sweetened by the sun, browned by love,-- A ripe truth I would fain break off from the tree. To-day I stretch my hands Toward the tresses of chance, Wise enough to lead, To outwit chance like a child. To-day I will be hospitable 'Gainst the unwelcome, 'Gainst destiny itself I will not be prickly.... --Zarathustra is no hedgehog. My soul, Insatiable with its tongue, Has already tasted of all things good and evil, And has dived into all depths. But ever, like the cork, It swims to the surface again, And floats like oil upon brown seas: Because of this soul men call me fortunate.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.