Round about the city rests. The illuminated streets grow <br /> <br />Quiet, and coaches rush along, adorned with torches. <br /> <br />Men go home to rest, filled with the day's pleasures; <br /> <br />Busy minds weigh up profit and loss contentedly <br /> <br />At home. The busy marketplace comes to rest, <br /> <br />Vacant now of flowers and grapes and crafts. <br /> <br />But the music of strings sounds in distant gardens: <br /> <br />Perhaps lovers play there, or a lonely man thinks <br /> <br />About distant friends, and about his own youth. <br /> <br />Rushing fountains flow by fragrant flower beds, <br /> <br />Bells ring softly in the twilight air, and a watchman <br /> <br />Calls out the hour, mindful of the time. <br /> <br />Now a breeze rises and touches the crest of the grove — <br /> <br />Look how the moon, like the shadow of our earth, <br /> <br />Also rises stealthily! Phantastical night comes, <br /> <br />Full of stars, unconcerned probably about us — <br /> <br />Astonishing night shines, a stranger among humans, <br /> <br />Sadly over the mountain tops, in splendor.<br /><br />Friedrich Holderlin<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/bread-and-wine-7/
