This street

This crowd of men and women, this evening;

Like rivers from the top of the mountain, holding on their head

Forms of twilight-colored snow,

Gather in the arms of a white lake!—

This swift-footed, quick-moving caravan of life,

“Neither aware of its beginning or end,”

No one knows from where it comes, where it goes!—

In the golden evening

Eros [1] glitters;

He has fixed his aim; his bow drawn.

Whom will its arrows strike?

Where? Here or there? —

The glance met another glance and it was the end of the affair of the heart!.

In the golden evening 

Eros glitters;

Whether someone laughed or someone cried, he keeps on smiling;

I’ve come back again to this same place;

This street, this crowd of men and women, this evening,

This swift-footed, quick-moving caravan of life,

This upsurge of color, these manifestations of the flood of beauty;

My glances are bright with the light of this place; 

These streets which were trampled by my youth—

It’s the same place, but it is not the same place.

It’s evening, but it isn’t that golden evening;

There’s nothing of that pomp and glory, that noise and bustle

I’m not the same because I’m not their slave.

There is no more light in the temple which was once here

Because there are no more of those watching who were once here.

.

From: Ātishkadah (Fireplace). No publication data; probably printed by the author. pp. 112 – 14