The night

All around the city rests; the illuminated street becomes quiet,

and, decked with torches, the wagons rumble away.

Sated with the pleasures of the day, people go home to rest,

and a thoughtful head ponders the profits and losses

in great satisfaction at home. The busy market stands empty of grapes and flowers

and rests from the works of human hands.

But a stringed instrument sounds from gardens far away; perhaps it is that

a lover is playing or a lonely man

is thinking about distant friends and youthful times. And the fountains,

constantly bubbling and fresh, are rippling by fragrant flowerbeds.

Quietly in the twilight air sound out the ringing bells,

and as a reminder of the hours a watchman calls out the number.

Now, too, comes a stirring and sets the treetops of the grove moving.

Look! And the mirror image of our earth, the moon,

comes secretly now also. The visionary one, night, comes,

filled with stars, and indeed little concerned about us

gleams the astonishing one there, the stranger among humankind,

over mountain heights sadly and gloriously gleams on us.