By the River

One Evening (by the Neckar at Heidelberg) – by Muhammad Iqbal, the “Poet of the East”, from “The Call of the Road”

SILENT is the moonlight pale,
The boughs of all the trees are still,
The music-maker of the vale
Hushed, and the green robes of the hill ;
Fallen into swoon creation
Sleeps in the bosom of the night,
And from this hush such magic grows,
No more now Neckar’s current flows ;
Silent the starry caravan moves
Onward, no bell tinkling its flight,
Silent the hills and streams and groves,
All Nature lost in contemplation.
Oh heart, you too be silent : keep
                Your grief hugged close, and sleep.