THE DRUNKEN SONG 469
Ye good dancers, now all lust is gone. Wine be- came lees, every cup became mellow, the graves stammer.
Ye have not flown high enough. Now the graves stammer : ' Redeem the dead ! Why is it night so long ? Doth the moon not make us drunken ? '
Ye higher men, redeem the graves, awaken the corpses ! Alas ! Why diggeth the worm ? The hour approacheth, approacheth.
The bell hummeth, even the heart purreth, even the wood-worm, the heart-worm, diggeth. Alas ! alas ! The world is deep!
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Sweet lyre ! Sweet lyre ! I love thy tone, thy drunken tone of toads ! From what time, from what distance, come thy tones unto me, from a far distance, from the ponds of love ?
Thou old bell, thou sweet lyre ! Every pain made a gap in thy heart, the pain of the father, the pain of the fathers, the pain of the forefathers. Thy speech hath become ripe ;
Ripe as a golden autumn and afternoon, as my hermit-heart. Now speakest thou: 'The world itself hath become ripe, the grape becometh brown.
Now it wanteth to die, to die of happiness.' Ye higher men, do ye not smell it? Secretly an odour springeth up.
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