Knowing that thou art God I do not fear,--
Speak to me, raise me from my life's long dream.
"The whole night through thou liest here
Beside the well that waters Lethe's stream,
And still thou dost not drink; O Man make haste;
Ere long the dawn will pour adown the waste,
And show thee, reft from the embrace of night,
The barren world, barren of revelry.
Happy art thou, O Man, happily free,
Who wilt never see
A thousand ages shed their life and light
As petals fall at eventide.
Thou shalt not see the radiant stars subside
Into the frozen ocean of the Vast,
Nor see thy world absorbed at last
Into a nothingness, an airless void,
Nor see the thoughts that Man has glorified
Swept from the world, and with the world destroyed.
This have I seen a thousand times repeated,
Unhappy as I am, unhappy God!
As many times as thou hast greeted
The rising sun against the broad
And tranquil clouds, so many times have I
Greeted the dawn of a new Universe,
And seen the molten stars rehearse
The lives and passions of the stars gone by.
When worlds are growing old, and there draw nigh
The shadows that shall cover them for ever,
(Shadows like these which doom your ancient sky)
Then to the well that feeds the sacred river