Daybreak [after Nietzsche in an early English translation]

...

I will tell you
I have come back

whoever proceeds on his own path meets nobody
he goes his own way

Has he still a path before him?
Is he really moving at all?

I went down
undermining
a long privation of light and air

One easily unlearns
how to hold one’s tongue

Does it not seem
as if some faith
were leading him on?

But, after all
why must we proclaim so loudly
and with such intensity
what we are
what we want
what we do not want

Let us look at this

Let us proclaim it
as if among ourselves
in so low a tone
that all the world fails to hear

Let us say it slowly

The leisurely art of the goldsmith
an art which must carry out slow, fine work
more desirable than ever before

We step to one side
We leave ourselves spare moments

to grow silent
to become slow

profoundly, attentively, prudently
with the doors afar
with delicate fingers and eyes

My patient friends

learn to read me well