3.
You higher men, it is getting on to midnight: then will I say something into your ears, as that old clock-bell says it into my ear,-
-As mysteriously, as frightfully, and as cordially as that midnight clock-bell speaks it to me, which has experienced more than one man:
-Which has already counted the smarting throbbings of your fathers' hearts- ah! ah! how it sighs! how it laughs in its dream! the old, deep, deep midnight!
Hush! Hush! Then is there many a thing heard which may not be heard by day; now however, in the cool air, when even all the tumult of your hearts has become still,-
-Now does it speak, now is it heard, now does it steal into overwakeful, nocturnal souls: ah! ah! how the midnight sighs! how it laughs in its dream!
-Hear you not how it mysteriously, frightfully, and cordially speaks to you, the old deep, deep midnight?
O man, take heed!
4.
Woe to me! Where has time gone? Have I not sunk into deep wells? The world sleeps-
Ah! Ah! The dog howls, the moon shins. Rather will I die, rather will I die, than say to you what my midnight-heart now thinks.
Already have I died. It is all over. Spider, why spin you around me? Will you have blood? Ah! Ah! The dew falls, the hour comes-
