Ecce Homo Complete Works, Volume Seventeen · Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
TO THE GLACIER
At noontide hour, when first, Into the mountains Summer treads, Summer, the boy with eyes so hot and weary, Then too he speaks, Yet we can only see his speech. His breath is panting, like the sick man's breath On fevered couch. The glacier and the fir tree and the spring Answer his call --Yet we their answer only see. For faster from the rock leaps down The torrent stream, as though to greet, And stands, like a white column trembling, All yearning there. And darker yet and truer looks the fir-tree Than e'er before. And 'twixt the ice-mass and the cold grey stone A sudden light breaks forth-- Such light I once beheld, and marked the sign. Even the dead man's eye Surely once more grows light, When, sorrowful, his child Gives him embrace and kiss: Surely once more the flame of light Wells out, and glowing into life The dead eye speaks: "My child! Ah child, you know I love you true!" So all things glow and speak--the glacier speaks, The brook, the fir, Speak with their glance the selfsame words: We love you true, Ah, child, you know we love you, love you true! And he, Summer, the boy with eyes so hot and weary, Woe-worn, gives kisses More ardent ever, And will not go: But like to veils he blows his words From out his lips, His cruel words: "My greeting's parting, My coming going, In youth I die." All round they hearken And scarcely breathe (No songster sings), And shuddering run Like gleaming ray Over the mountain; All round they ponder,-- Nor speak-- Twas at the noon, At noontide hour, when first Into the mountains Summer treads, Summer, the boy with eyes so hot and weary.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.