Is "Augen hat des Menschen Bild" a matter of style or grammar?

Question

Augen hat des Menschen Bild,

hingegen Licht der Mond.

I am particularly troubled by the first line quoted here from Friedrich Hölderlin's In lieblicher Bläue.

Augen hat des Menschen Bild seems to make no grammatical sense: Augen = eyes; hat = has; des Menschen = the people's (genitive case); Bild = picture.

How do you put all this together intelligibly? Eyes has picture of the people? That would be the closest version to a sentence actually making sense. If so, why hat and not haben, to agree with Augen? Why not die Augen haben das Bild des Menschen (instead of the more natural, in my opinion, die Augen sind das Bild des Menschen)? Is this what the poet actually meant: die Augen sind das Bild des Menschen? And why are both Augen and Bild without their respective definite articles?

Answer 1

„Des Menschen Bild“ is an archaic/poetical genitive construction, moving the genitive noun in front of the subject noun (in German: „vorangestellter Genitiv“). In modern German, one would say "das Bild des Menschen":

„Das Bild des Menschen hat Augen, der Mond hat Licht.“

"The people's / man's sight / picture has eyes, the moon has light"

For „Bild“, i would propose "sight" instead of "picture", because the preceding lines tell of someone looking into a mirror. That's also the reason for proposing "man" instead of "people" - it's a person spotting his own mirror image:

Wenn einer in den Spiegel siehet,
ein Mann, und siehet darinn sein Bild, wie abgemahlt;
es gleicht dem Manne.
Augen hat des Menschen Bild,
hingegen Licht der Mond.

(Bibliotheca Augustana: In lieblicher Bläue)

Regarding the missing definite article: i can't provide a source, but i would generally expect the subject noun to be definite in such a construction. At least, i didn't find an example where the subject is indefinite.