Ecce Homo Complete Works, Volume Seventeen · Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
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! _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! 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. He who has much to tell, keeps much Silent and unavowed. He who with lightning-flash would touch Must long remain a cloud! 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? "O Peuple des meillures Tartuffes, To you I'm true, I wis." He spoke, but in the swiftest skiff Went to Cosmopolis.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.