The poem with which Nietzsche concludes his book should be seen as its culmination, as the foremost of Nietzsche's attempts to push forward the above project of writing. As he notes in §3 of the “Attempt at Self-Criticism” in The Birth of Tragedy (written a few months after the completion of Beyond), that early book should not have been written as it was, it should have been sung: “What a shame I did not say what I had to say then as a poet”. “Aftersong” is a literal translations of “Nach-gesang”, which is in turn a literal translation of the Greek “epode”. Nietzsche does not follow the characteristic two-line structure and rhythm of a classical epode; he is more concerned with it as the last, completing part of an ode.

We will reference the poem by the stanza number, one to fifteen. Broadly, the poem is a very simple narrative. The narrator awaits friends who, when they arrive, do not recognize him. He doubts himself, wonders whether he has destroyed any sense of himself. He realizes that he has changed to something more suitable or aligned to the world as it is (the hunter), and they have not, and that therefore this place has grown dangerous for them. They leave at his bidding, and he contemplates their memory and the nature of their friendship. He awaits new friends; it is Zarathustra who arrives.