Classic Poem

While daylight lasts, I'm reading in my books
But when I would compose, it's my own light
Illuminates me. When the sun has set,
It goes on shining still, intense and bright.

Then every meaning is transparent now,
For there is one long lucid day with me
I would not be beholden through the night
To either moon or electricity.

Often at night I will switch off my lamp
So that in darkness I may see more clear
For that which I possess is inner light
If real light shines, then it will disappear.

How often do I look away from things
And sights appear which eye has never seen
What lovely images my fancy views
As in a cinema thrown on the screen.

Some of these things I paint for you in verse
Though I employ no colors in my art
It is a dim nocturnal light I love
Lest phantom forms of happiness depart

From which all inspiration I derive
That's why in evening I such pleasure find
Those who demand a strong and powerful light
Do so because deep in their souls they're blind.

And they when darkness gathers round about them
Being of shallow mind and empty head
Suppose that they're enclosed within the tomb
And in their terror think that they are dead.

I never needed moonlight for itself
But it reminds me of my love's soft grace
As those by thirst afflicted may desire
The mirage glimmering on the desert's face.