Evening Twilight

Heres the criminals friend, delightful evening:     come like an accomplice, with a wolfs loping:     slowly the skys vast vault hides each feature,     and restless man becomes a savage creature.     Evening, sweet evening, desired by him who can say     without his arms proving him a liar: Today     weve worked! It refreshes, this evening hour,     those spirits that savage miseries devour,     the dedicated scholar with heavy head,     the bowed workman stumbling home to bed.     Yet now unhealthy demons rise again     clumsily, in the air, like busy men,     beat against sheds and arches in their flight.     And among the wind-tormented gas-lights     Prostitution switches on through the streets     opening her passageways like an ant-heap:     weaving her secret tunnels everywhere,     like an enemy planning a coup, shes there     burrowing into the wombs of the citys mires,     like a worm stealing from Man what it desires.     Here, there, you catch the kitchens whistles,     the orchestras droning, the theatres yells,     low dives where gamblings all the pleasure,     filling with whores, and crooks, their partners,     and the thieves who show no respite or mercy,     will soon be setting to work, as they tenderly,     they too, toil at forcing safes and doorways,     to live, clothe their girls, for a few more days.     Collect yourself, my soul, at this grave hour,     and close your ears to the rising howl.     Its now that the pains of the sick increase!     Dark Night clasps them by the throat: they reach     their journeys end, the common pits abandon:     the hospital fills with their sighs. Many a one,     will never return to their warm soup by the fire,     by the hearth, at evening, next to their hearts desire.     And besides the majority have never known     never having lived, the gentleness of home!