'Bread and Wine' and Other Poems (translated by Andrew Shanks)

Bread and Wine

To Heinze


1

All around the city subsides, in lamplight and quiet,
  And, with torches ablaze, carriages clatter away.
The people go happily home, replete now and drowsy.
  A businessman, frowning with thought, surveys his accounts,
Then smiles. And stillness descends on the stalls of the market,
  The flowers, the grapes, the knick-knacks all stashed out of sight.
But, listen - stringed music! Far off, in a garden maybe,
  A lover is playing, or one who is now bereft,
Thinking of those long gone, missing their laughter. The fountains
  Splash, spilling their freshness into the sweet-scented air.
Bells chime, in the gloaming, one still stroke after another;
  And, punctual as ever, a watchman calls out the hour.
Now, too, a breeze comes to rustle the tops of the coppice,
  And here, look! here comes our earth's shadow image, the moon
...