| Margarete Münsterberg, ed., trans. A Harvest of German Verse. 1916. | | | | People at Night | | By Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926) |
| | | THE NIGHTS were not made for crowds, and they sever | |
| You from your neighbour, and you shall never | |
| Seek him, defiantly, at night. | |
| But if you make your dark house light, | |
| To look on strangers in your room, | 5 |
| You must reflect—on whom. | |
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| False lights that on men’s faces play | |
| Distort them gruesomely. | |
| You look upon a disarray, | |
| A world that seems to reel and sway, | 10 |
| A waving, glittering sea. | |
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| On foreheads gleams a yellow shine, | |
| Where thoughts are chased away, | |
| Their glances flicker mad from wine, | |
| And to the words they say | 15 |
| Strange heavy gestures make reply | |
| That struggle in the buzzing room; | |
| And they say always “I” and “I,” | |
| And mean—they know not whom. | | | | |
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