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,

You must reflect—on whom.

False lights that on men’s faces play

Distort them gruesomely.

You look upon a disarray,

A world that seems to reel and sway,

A waving, glittering sea.

On foreheads gleams a yellow shine,

Where thoughts are chased away,

Their glances flicker mad from wine,

And to the words they say

Strange heavy gestures make reply

That struggle in the buzzing room;

And they say always “I” and “I,”

And mean—they know not whom.