General survey of the Trakl-Site:

The Poetry and Letters
Kaleidoskope der Mehrdeutigkeit
Materials on Trakl
email

Georg Trakl:
The Poetical Bequest
(Part 2)

and the
German version of the Trakl-Site.

The order follows the German historical-critical edition by Walter Killy and Hans Szklenar.

Collection 1909 (in part 1)
Poems 1909-12 (in part 1)
Poems 1912-14
Double Versions of the poems published during Trakl's lifetime
Complexes of Poems and Fragments (in part 3)
Dramatic Fragments (in part 3)
Aphorisms (two texts) (in part 3)

Poems 1912-14

A carpet, into which the suffering landscape pales

Perhaps the Sea of Galilee, a boat in the gale

Golden things fall out of storm clouds

Insanity, that seizes the gentle human.

The old waters gurgle a blue laughter.

And sometimes a dark pit opens.

The possessed are reflected in cold metals

Drops of blood fall on glowing plates

And a countenance decays in black night.

Flags, which babble in sinister vaults.

Other things remind on the birds' flight

Over the gallows the crows' mystical signs

Coppery snakes sink in spiky grasses

In pillows of incense a smile whore-like and clever.

Good Friday's children stand blindly at fences

In the mirror of dark gutters full of rottenness

The sighing recovery of the dying

And angels who go through white eyes

From lids dimming golden redemption.

Rosy mirror: an ugly image

That appears in the black background,

Blood weeps from broken eyes

Blaspheming plays with dead snakes.

Snow runs through the staring shirt

Purple over the black face,

That breaks in heavy pieces

From planets, deceased and strange.

A spider appears in the black background

Lust, your countenance deceased and strange.

Blood runs through the staring shirt

Snow weeps from broken eyes.

The song of the spring rain is dark in the night,

Under the clouds the showers of rosy pear blossoms

Trickery of the heart, chant and insanity of the night.

Fiery angels who step from deceased eyes.

Figure which has long dwelt in the coolness of sinister stone

Opens the pale mouth sounding

Round owl's eyes – sounding gold.

Those found the cave of the forest decayed and empty

The shadow of a doe in the rotten branches

At the border of the spring the darkness of his childhood.

Long at the forest border a bird sings your decline

The anxious showers of your brown coat;

The shadow of the owl appears in the rotten branches.

Long at the forest border a bird sings your decline

The anxious showers of your blue coat

The shadow of the mother appears in the spiky grass.

Long at the forest border a bird sings your decline

The anxious showers of your black coat

The shadow of the black horse appears in the mirror of the spring.

[Deliriums]

[1 is missing]

2

Dark interpretation of the water: forehead in the mouth of the night,

Sighing in black pillows the rosy shadow of man,

Redness of autumn, the rustle of the maple in the old park,

Chamber concerts which fade on decayed stairs.

3

The black excrement, which runs off the roofs.

A red finger dips into your forehead

Blue snow sinks in the attic,

The deceased mirror of lovers.

Delirium

The black snow which runs off the roofs;

A red finger dips into your forehead

Blue snow sinks in the bleak room,

The deceased mirror of lovers.

The head breaks in heavy pieces and ponders

After the shadows in the mirror of blue snow,

The cold smile of a dead strumpet.

In the smell of carnations the evening wind weeps.

On the Edge of an Old Water

Dark interpretation of the water: stars in the mouth of the night,

Sighing in black pillows the rosy shadow of man,

Redness of autumn, the rustling of the maple in the old park,

Chamber concerts which fade on decayed stairs.

On the Edge of an Old Well

Dark interpretation of the water: broken forehead in the mouth of the night,

The boy's bluish shadow sighing in black pillows,

The rustling of the maple, steps in the old park,

Chamber concerts which fade on a spiral staircase,

Perhaps a moon which quietly climbs the steps.

The gentle voices of the nuns in the decayed church,

A blue tabernacle which slowly opens,

Stars which fall on your bony hands,

Perhaps a walk through abandoned rooms,

The blue tone of the flute in the hazel bushes - very quietly.

Along Walls

An old path goes along

Near wild gardens and lonesome walls.

Thousand-year-old yews shudder

In the rising falling chant of the wind.

The moths dance as if they would die soon,

My glance drinks weeping the shadows and lights.

Far away women's faces float

Ghostly painted in the blue.

A smile trembles in the sunshine,

Meanwhile I slowly stride on;

Unending love gives escort.

Quietly the hard rock greens.

                 I

A paleness, resting in the shadow of decayed staircases -

It rises at night in silver guise

And wanders under the cloister.

In coolness of a tree and without pain

The perfect breathes

And does not need the autumnal stars -

Thorns over which the other falls.

Lovers ponder long after

His sad fall.

The stillness of the deceased loves the old garden,

The madwoman who dwelled in blue rooms,

In the evening the still shape appears in the window

She, however, closes the yellowed curtain -

The trickling of the glass beads reminded of our childhood,

At night we found a black moon in the forest

The soft sonata sounds in a mirror's blueness

Long embraces

With rosy stages the stone sinks in the moor

Song of gliding and black laughter

Figures go in and out of rooms

And death grins bony in black boat.

Pirate on the canal in the red wine

Whose mast and sail often broke in the storm.

Drowned ones bump purple against the rock

Of the bridges. Steely the call of the guards clangs.

But sometimes, the glance listens in the candlelight

And follows the shadows on decayed walls

And dancers are with sleep-devoured hands.

The night, that breaks blackly on your head

And dead people who turn over in beds

Grasp the marble with broken hands.

The blue night has softly risen on our foreheads.

Quietly our putrid hands touch

Sweet bride!

Our countenance became pale, moony pearls

Melted in green pond-ground.

Petrified ones, we contemplate our stars.

O painful! Culprits wander in the garden

The shadows in wild embrace,

So that tree and animal sank about them in immense anger.

Soft harmonies, when we ride

through the still night in crystalline waves

A rosy angel steps from the graves of the lovers.

O the dwelling in the stillness of the dusking garden,

When the eyes of the sister round and dark opened in the brother,

The purple of their broken mouths

Melted in the coolness of the evening.

Heart-breaking hour.

September ripened the golden pear. Sweetness of incense

And the dahlia burns at the old fence

Say! where were we, when we passed by on small black boat

In the evening,

The crane passed over. The freezing arms

Held black embraced, and inside blood ran.

And around our temples moist blue. Poor little child.

Deeply a dark race ponders out of knowing eyes.

In the Evening

A blue brook, path and evening along decayed huts.

Behind dark shrubbery children play with blue and red balls;

Some swap the forehead and the hands rot in the brown foliage.

In bony stillness the heart of the lonely one shines,

A small boat rocks on blackish waters.

Through dark woods hair and laughter of brown maids flutters.

The shadows of the old people cross the flight of a small bird;

Mystery of blue flowers on their temples.

Others sway on black benches in the evening wind.

Golden sighs quietly expire in the bleak branches

Of the chestnut; a sound of dark cymbals of summer,

When the strangeress appears on the decayed staircase.

Justice

Huts of childhood are in autumn,

Decayed hamlet; dark shapes,

Singing mothers in the evening wind;

At windows Angelus and hands fold.

Still birth; on green ground

Mystery and stillness of blue flowers.

Insanity opens the purple mouth:

Dies irae - grave and stillness.

Groping along green thorns;

In the sleep: blood-vomit, hunger and laughter;

Fire in the village, awakening in the green;

Fear and swaying on gurgling boat.

Or in wooden staircase again

The white shadow of the strange woman leans.-

Poor sinner longing away in the blueness

Left his putrefaction behind for lilies and rats.

Sister's Garden

It's already cool, it's already late,

It's already autumn

In sister's garden, silent and still;

Her step has turned white.

A blackbird call lost and late,

It's already autumn

In sister's garden, silent and still;

An angel became.

Sister's Garden

In sister's garden silent and still

A blue a red from flowers late

Her step has turned white.

A blackbird call lost and late ,

In sister's garden silent and still;

An angel became.

Wind, white voice that whispers near the temple of the sleeper

In rotten branches the darkness crouches in his purple hair

Long evening bell, sunk in the mud of the pond

And over it the yellow flowers of the summer bend.

Concert of bumblebees and blue flies in wild grass and loneliness,

Where once Ophelia went with stirring steps

Soft behavior of insanity. Anxiously the green surges in the reeds

And the yellow leaves of the water lilies, a carcass molders in hot nettles

Awaking childish sunflowers flutter around the sleeper.

September evening, or the dark calls of the shepherds,

Smell of thyme. Glowing iron sprays in the smithy

Enormously a black horse rears up; the hyacinthine lock of the maid

Snatches after the fervency of its purple nostrils.

The cry of the partridge stiffens to yellow walls a plow rusting in rotting manure

Quietly red wine trickles, the soft guitar in the inn.

O death! The ill soul's decayed arch silence and childhood.

Wind, white voice that whispers near the temple of the drunken one;

Rotten path. Long evening bells sunk in the mud of the pond

And over it the yellow flowers of the summer bend, the bats flicker

With mad faces.

Homeland! Evening-rosy mountains! Rest! Purity!

The cry of the vulture! Lonely the sky darkens,

The head in the forest's edge sinks enormously.

The night rises from dark ravines.

Awaking childish sunflowers flutter around the sleeper.

So quietly in the evening

The blue shadows ring

By the white wall.

The autumnal year silently folds.

Hour of unending gloom,

As if I perished for you.

From stars a snowy wind

Blows through your hair.

Dark songs

Your purple mouth sings in me,

The taciturn hut of our childhood,

Forgotten legends;

As if I dwell, a soft deer,

In the crystalline wave

Of the cool well

And the violets bloomed all around

The dew of spring, which falls down

From dark branches, the night comes

With star beams, because you forgot about light.

Under the arch of thorns you lay and the barb dug

Deeply in the crystal body

So that fierier the soul weds the night.

The bride has adorned herself with stars,

The pure myrtle

Which bends over the adoring countenance of the dead.

Full of blossoming shiver

The blue coat of the mistress finally embraces you.

O the defoliated beeches and the blackish snow.

Quietly the north blows. Here a darkness walked

The brown path months ago.

Alone in autumn. Always the flakes fall

In the bleak branches

In the dry reeds; green crystal sings in the pond

The hut of straw empty; a childish

Are the blowing birches in the night wind.

O the way which quietly freezes in the darkness.

And the dwelling in rosy snow

To Novalis
(version 1)

Resting in crystalline earth, holy stranger,

A God took his lament from the dark mouth,

When he sank in his bloom

Peacefully the string play died down

In his breast,

And spring scattered its palms before him,

When with halting steps

He silently left the nocturnal house.

[To Novalis]
(version 2a)

In dark earth the holy stranger rests.

The God took the lament from his soft mouth,

When he sank in his bloom.

A blue flower

His song lives on in the nocturnal house of pain.

To Novalis
(version 2b)

In dark earth the holy stranger rests

In tender bud

The divine spirit grew in the youth,

The drunken string play

And fell silent in rosy bloom.

Hour of Grief

Blackish the step follows the gleaming moon

In the autumnal garden,

The immense night sinks by the freezing wall.

O, the thorny hour of grief.

Silverly the candlestick of the lonely one flickers in the dusking room,

Dying away, when that one thinks a darkness

And bends the stony head over the perishable,

Drunk from wine and nightly harmonies.

The ear always follows

The soft lament of the blackbird in the hazel bushes.

Dark rosary hour. Who are you

Lonesome flute,

Forehead, bent over sinister times freezing.

[Nocturnal Lament]

The night has risen over the rumpled forehead

With beautiful stars

By the hill, where you lay petrified by pain,

A wild animal in the garden rankled your heart.

A fiery angel,

You lie with broken breast on stony field,

Or in the forest a nocturnal bird's

Unending lament

Always repeating in thorny night branches.

Nocturnal Lament

The night has risen over the rumpled forehead

With beautiful stars

Over the pain-petrified countenance.

A wild animal rankled the loving heart

A fiery angel

Falls with broken breast on stony field,

Again a vulture flutters up.

Woe in unending lament

Fire, earth and blue well mix

To Johanna

Often I hear your steps

Ring through the alley.

In the small brown garden

The blueness of your shadow.

In the dawning bower

I sat in silence with the wine.

A drop of blood

Sank from your temple

Into the singing glass

Hour of unending gloom.

From stars a snowy wind

Blows through the foliage.

Any death, the night

The pale man suffers.

Your purple mouth

Dwells a wound in me.

As if I came from the green

Fir hills and legends

Of our homeland,

Which we long forgot -

Who are we? Blue lament

Of a mossy forest spring,

Where the violets

Secretly scent in spring.

A peaceful village in summer

Once sheltered the childhood

Of our race,

Dying off now at the evening-

Hill the white grandchildren

We dream the terror

Of our nightly blood

Shadows in stony city.

Melancholy

The blue soul has mutely closed,

In the open window the brown forest sinks,

The stillness of dark animals; in the valley

The mill grinds, by the footbridge clouds rest outpoured,

The golden strangers. A procession of steeds

Gallops red in the village. The garden brown and cold.

The aster freezes, so delicately painted on the fence

The sunflower's gold almost flown away.

The stumpets' voices; dew is poured out

On the hard grass and stars white and cold.

See death painted in the dear shadow,

Every countenance full of tears and closed.

Please

Send your flames to the spirit, when it endures,

Imprisoned sighs in black midnight,

Near the spring hill, when the gentle lamb

Offers itself, the deepest pain endures;

O love that rises in the heart

Like a round light and endures a soft shape,

So that this earthen vessel breaks.

Please

Send your flames to the spirit, when it endures,

Imprisoned lies in black midnight,

Until once it piously offers itself

For the world, for that he owes the deepest pain.

Love, that flames up in the heart

Like a light and endures a soft shape,

So that death breaks this vessel;

Murdered lamb whose blood absolves the world.

To Lucifer

Lend your flame to the spirit, glowing gloom;

Sighing the head rises into midnight,

At the greening spring hill; where before

A gentle lamb bled, endured the deepest

Pain; but the dark one follows the shadow

Of evil, or he lifts the moist wings

To the golden disk of the sun and a sound of bells

Convulses his pain-torn breast,

Wild hope; the sinisterness of flaming fall.

Blue evening take someone's temple, quietly a slumbering

Under autumnal trees, under golden cloud.

The forest beholds; as if the boy dwelled, a blue deer

In the crystalline wave of the cool well

His heart beats so quietly in hyacinthine dusk,

The shadow of the sister mourns, her purple hair;

This flickers in the night wind. Someone

Sleepwalks sunken paths and his red mouth dreams

Under rotting trees; the pond's coolness

Embraces the sleeper silently,

The decayed moon glides over his blackish eyes.

Stars sinking in the brown oak branches.

[In the Evening]

The grass is still yellow, the tree gray and black

But with greening step you go past the forest,

Boy, who with large eyes looks at the sun.

O how beautiful are the ecstatic cries of the little birds.

The river comes from the mountains cold and clear

Sounds in the green hiding place; so it sounds,

When you drunkenly move the legs. Wild walk

In the blue; ghost who steps from trees and bitter herb

See your figure. O raving! Love bends towards feminine,

To bluish waters. Rest and purity!

Bud saves many, verdancy! Absolve the forehead

Which is already very dark with the moist evening branches,

Step and gloom sound harmoniously in the purple sun.

In the Evening

The grass is still yellow, the forest gray and black

But in the evening verdancy dawns,

The river comes from the mountains cold and clear,

Sounds in the rock hiding place; so it sounds,

When you drunkenly move the legs; wild walk

In the blue; and the ecstatic cries of the small birds.

The forehead, which is already very dark,

Inclines deeper over bluish waters, feminine;

Declining again in green evening branches.

Step and gloom sound harmoniously in the purple sun.

With the Young Wine

Sun sets purple,

Swallow has already flown far off.

Under arches in the evening

New wine goes round;

Child your wild laughter.

Pain in which the world passes.

Remain attached to the moment,

When in the evening of wooden arches

New wine goes round;

Child your wild laughter.

Flickering star blows at the window,

The black night comes,

When in shadow of dark arches

New wine goes round;

Child your wild laughter.

With the Young Wine

Sun sets purple,

Swallow has already flown far off.

Under arches in the evening

New wine goes round;

Snow falls behind the mountain.

Summer's last green drifts away,

Hunter comes from the forest.

Under arches in the evening

New wine goes round;

Snow falls behind the mountain.

Bat blows around the forehead,

A stranger comes silently.

Under arches in the evening

New wine goes round;

Snow falls behind the mountain.

The night devoured red faces,

By a hairy wall

A childish skeleton gropes in the shadow

Of the drunkard, broken laughter

In the wine, glowing gloom,

Spirit's torture - a stone falls silent

The blue voice of the angel

In the ear of the sleeper. Decayed light.

Homecoming

When the evening breathes golden rest

Forest and dark meadow before which

Man is a looker,

A shepherd, dwelling in the flocks' dusking stillness,

The patience of the red beeches;

So clearly since it has become autumn. By the hill

The lonely one listens to the flight of birds,

To dark meaning and the shadows of the dead

Have gathered more seriously around him;

Cool mignonette scent fulfills him with shudders,

The huts of the villagers the elder,

Where in former times the child dwelled.

Memory, buried hope

Is preserved by these brown rafters,

Over which dahlias hang

So that the hands strive after them,

In the brown garden the shimmering step

Forbidden loving, dark year,

That from blue eyelids the tears

Of the stranger fell irresistibly.

From brown treetops dew drips,

When that one, a blue deer, awakes on the hill,

Listening to the loud calls of the fishermen

By the evening pond

To the amorphous cry of the bats;

But in golden stillness

The drunken heart dwells

Full of its noble death.

Daydreaming

Soft life grows in the stillness

Step and heart hurries through the green

Loving stays at hedges,

That heavily fill up with scents.

Beech ponders; the moist bells

Fell silent, the fellow sings

Fire embraces darkness

O patience and mute rejoicing.

Beautifully animated, silent night

Still gives glad courage to the end.

Golden wine, offered by

A sister's blue hands.

Daydreaming

Soft life grows in the stillness around

Step and heart hurries through the green

Loving stays at hedges,

That fill up with scents.

Profound beech in the pub garden; the moist bells

Fell silent; a fellow sings

- Fire that searches darkness -

O blue stillness, patience!

Greening night, give

the lonely one glad courage,

Whose star expired,

Laughter in purple wine.

Daydreaming

Lovers go by hedges,

That fill up with scents.

In the evening glad guests come

From the dusking road.

Pondering chestnut in the inn garden.

The moist bells fell silent.

A fellow sings by the river

- Fire that searches darkness -

O blue stillness! Patience!

When anything blooms.

Night, also give

The homeless one soft courage,

Unfathomable darkness

Golden hour in vine.

Psalm

Stillness; as if blind people sank down by autumnal wall,

Listening with rotten temples to the flight of the ravens;

Golden stillness of autumn, the countenance of the father in the flickering sun

At evening the old village decays in the peace of brown oaks,

The red hammering of the smithy, a pounding heart.

Stillness; in slow hands the maid hides the hyacinthine forehead

Under fluttering sunflowers. Fear and silence

Of extinguishing eyes fulfills the dusking room, the halting steps

Of old women, the escape of the purple mouth which slowly expires in the darkness.

Taciturn evening in vine. From the low rafters

A nocturnal moth fell, nymph buried into bluish sleep.

In the courtyard the farm boy slaughters a lamb, the sweet smell of the blood

Clouds our foreheads, the dark coolness of the fountain.

The gloom of dying asters regrets, golden voices in the wind.

When it becomes night you look at me from moldered eyes,

In blue stillness your cheeks decayed to dust.

So quietly a weed's fire expires, the black hamlet in the ground falls silent

As if the cross climbed down the blue hill of Calvary,

The silent earth ejected its dead.

[Autumnal Homecoming]

Memory, buried hope

Is preserved by this brown timber,

Dahlias hang over it

Ever more silent homecoming,

The dark reflection of past years

By the decayed garden,

That from blue eyelids the tears

Of the stranger fall irresistibly.

Autumnal Homecoming

Memory, buried hope

Is preserved by this brown timber,

Dahlias hang over it

Ever more silent homecoming,

The dark reflection of past years

By the decayed garden,

That tears fall from blue eyelids

Irresistibly.

O beloved!

Already foliage drips from the rusty maple,

Gloom's crystalline minutes

Gleam over

To the night.

Autumnal Homecoming

Memory, buried hope

Is preserved by this brown timber,

Dahlias hang over it

Ever more silent homecoming,

The dark reflection of childish years

By the decayed garden,

That tears fall from blue eyelids

Irresistibly;

Gloom's crystalline minutes

Gleam over

To the night.

[Remnant]

O spiritual reunion

In old autumn!

So still yellow roses defoliate

By the garden fence,

A great pain

Melted in tears.

So the golden day ends.

Reach your hand to me dear sister

In the evening coolness.

Remnant

O spiritual reunion

In old autumn.

Yellow roses

Defoliated by the garden fence,

A great pain melted

To a dark tear,

O sister!

So still the golden day ends.

Age

More spiritually the wild roses

Shine by the garden fence;

O silent soul!

In the cool wine leaves

The crystalline sun grazes;

O holy purity!

An old man with noble

Hands offers ripened fruits.

O look of love!

Die Sunflowers

You golden sunflowers,

Tenderly inclined toward death,

You sisters full of humility

In such stillness

Helian's year

Of mountainous coolness ends.

Then his drunken forehead

Pales from kisses

Amid those golden

Flowers of gloom

The spirit is determined

By silent sinisterness.

So seriously o summer dusk.

From tired mouth

Your golden breathe sank in the valley

To the places of the shepherds,

Sinks into the foliage.

A vulture lifts at the forest's edge

The petrified head -

An eagle's view

Shines in the gray clouds

The night.

The red roses

Wildly glow by the fence

What loves

Dies away glowing in the green wave

A pale rose

Double Versions
of the poems published during Trakl's lifetime

Colorful Autumn

A fountain sings. Clouds stand

In clear blueness, white, delicate.

Silent people wander thoughtfully

Through the old garden in the evening.

The marble of the ancestors has faded to grey.

A line of birds streaks into the distance.

A faun with dead eyes gazes

After shadows that glide into darkness.

Leaves fall red from the old tree,

Rotate inside through the open window.

A firelight glows in the room,

And paints dim specters of anxiety.

Opal smoke weaves over the grass,

A carpet of wilted smells.

In the fountain the sickle moon shimmers

Like green glass in freezing air.

Dream of Evil

O these lime-whitewashed, bleak alleys;

An old square; the sun in black ruins.

Bones and shadows shimmer through a passageway

In the harbor sails, masts, and ropes flash.

A monk, a pregnant woman there in the crowd.

Guitars strum; escape from empty rooms.

Chestnuts shrivel sultry in golden shine;

The churches' sad pageantry towers black.

The spirit of evil watches from pale masks.

Palaces dusk gruesome and somber.

In the evening whispers stir on the islands.

Lepers read confused signs from the flight

Of birds, perhaps decay during the night.

In the park siblings meet trembling.

Dream of Evil

Fading away of a death-bell's sounds -

A lover awakens in black rooms,

The cheek near stars that flicker at the window.

In the river sails, masts, and ropes flash.

A monk, a pregnant woman there in the crowd.

Guitars strum, red smocks gleam.

Chestnuts shrivel sultry in golden shine;

The churches' sad pageantry towers black.

The spirit of evil watches from pale masks.

A square dusks gruesome and somber.

In the evening whispers stir on the islands.

Lepers read confused signs from the flight

Of birds, perhaps decay during the night.

In the park siblings meet trembling.

Quietly

In the stubble field a black wind thunders.

Sadness' violet colors blossom out,

Thought-circle, that cloudily fulminates the brain.

By the fence asters lean, deceased,

And sunflowers blackish and weathered,

Loosened in paints and cyan colors.

A quaint bell-sound quivers through

Mignonettes, deceased in black array

And our foreheads shadowy trellised

Sink quietly into cyan colors

With sunflowers blackish and weathered

And brown asters, deceased by the fence.

Melancholia

Bluish shadows. O you dark eyes,

That gaze long at me gliding past.

Guitar chords softly accompany autumn

In the garden, dissolved in brown lyes.

Nymph-like hands prepare

Death's serious somberness, decayed lips

Suck at red breasts, and in brown lyes

The sun-youth's moist curls glide.

A stubble field. A black wind thunders.

Sadness' violet colors blossom out,

Thought-circle, that cloudily fulminates the brain.

By the fences asters lean, deceased,

And sunflowers blackish and weathered;

There the soul silences gruesomely shaken

Along rooms, empty and dark colored.

[Transformation]

The autumn's coolness: A room imposes gray.

Here cheerfulness appears, a hard life

The hands of man carrying golden vines

In soft eyes God silently sinks.

In the evening the other one wanders over land.

The oaks' brown silence fulfills the way

And always leaves sink from the branches

The soul freezes in the blackish vestment.

Peacefulness plays before an inn,

From the mouth the bitterness sank

Fruits of the elder, sounds gentle and drunk,

A deer follows the lonely one.

Cheerful Spring

When newly greened the brook flows into evening,

In reed and willow the spring-year rustles.

The blue air is sweet and wonderful

Because of the blossoming, which outpours into the night.

Past silent dusk-hedges the wind runs

And seeks the starry path of the lonely one.

In God's womb the young sowing gleams,

The forest with its animals gentle and dulcet.

The birches there, the black thornbush,

Stand softly dissolved in pain and lust.

Brightly green blooms, a dark green rots

And toads slept throughout the young leeks.

I love you truly, rough laundress,

Still the flood carries the sky's rosy burden.

A small fish flashes past and fades;

The wind runs silverly along through the alders.

Along by dusk-hedges heavy and quiet,

A small bird warbles like crazy.

The young corn swells quietly and ecstatically

And bees still collect with serious diligence.

Come now, love, to the weary laborer;

Into his hut a lukewarm beam falls.

The forest streams through the evening harsh and sallow

And now and then buds whisper cheerfully.

Yet how all that is being born seems so ill!

A feverish whiff encircles a hamlet.

Yet from branches a soft spirit beckons,

And opens the mind wide and anxious.

A blooming outpour trickles away very placidly

And the unborn maintains its own rest.

The lovers bloom toward their stars

And their breath flows sweeter into the night.

So painfully good and true is, what lives;

And quietly an old stone touches you:

Truly! I will always be with you.

O mouth! that trembles through the white willow.

[Doldrums]

In inns dreaming often in the afternoon,

In gardens burnt early by autumn and desolate

The drunken death goes mutely past and greets

In dark cage a thrush-flapping sounds.

From such blueness a rosy child steps

And plays with his eyes black and smooth.

A goldenness drips from branches mild and weak

But in red foliage the wind plays.

Already Saturn shines. In darkness the brook rushes

And quietly the friend's blue hand stirs

And silently smoothes forehead and robe.

A light rouses shadows in the elders.

Psalm

It is a light, which the wind has extinguished.

It is a village inn, which a drunkard abandons in the afternoon.

It is a vineyard, burned and black with holes full of spiders.

It is a room, which they have whitewashed with milk.

The lunatic is dead. It is an island of the South Pacific

To receive the sun god. One beats the drums.

The men perform warlike dances.

The women sway the hips between climbing plants and fire flowers

When the sea sings. O our lost paradise.

The nymphs have left the golden forests.

One buries the stranger; then a glimmering rain begins.

The son of Pan appears in the guise of an excavator,

He sleeps away the midday near the glowing asphalt.

There are small girls in a courtyard in little dresses full of heartbreaking poverty.

There are rooms fulfilled with chords and sonatas.

There are shadows that embrace before a blind mirror.

By the windows of the hospital convalescents warm themselves.

A white steamboat in the canal bears bloody epidemics along.

The strange sister appears again in someone's evil dreams.

Resting in the hazel bush she plays with his stars.

The student, possibly a double, looks long after her from the window.

His dead brother stands behind him. In the darkness of the room strange things may take place.

In red hyacinths the guise of the young attendant of the sick fades.

The garden is in evening. In the cloister the bats flutter about.

The children of the caretaker stop to play and search the gold of heaven.

It is a cloud that dissolves. In the bower the gardener has hanged himself.

In the glasshouse brown and blue colors blur. It is the decline, to which we drift.

Where the dead of yesterday lay, angels with white broken wings mourn.

Under oaks daemons with burning foreheads stray.

In the moorland bygone vegetations silence.

It is a whispering wind - God who leaves sad places.

The churches are deceased, worms nest in the niches.

The summer has burned the corn. The shepherds have transmigrated.

Always one touches an earlier life where one goes.

The mills and trees go empty in the evening wind.

In the destroyed city the night raises black tents.

How vain is everything!

[Nearness of Death]

The monk listens long to the dying bird by the forest edge

O the nearness of the death, the bony place at the hill

The sweat of fear, which appears on the waxy forehead.

The white shadow of the brother, which runs down the narrow path.

The evening has gone into the dark villages of childhood

The pond under the willows

Fills with the red florins of sad autumns.

O the fat rats in the straw!

The blind one, who in the evening stands again at the way

The stillness of gray clouds has sunk on the acre.

Spiders conceal the white caves of gloom

When from the lonely one's bony hands

The purple of his nightly days sinks down -

Quietly the brother's moony eyes.

O already in cooler pillows

Yellowed by incense, the lovers' lank limbs release.

In the Hospital

The clock that strikes twelve deep in the green -

A bright horror grips the fever-sick.

The sky glistens and the gardens roar.

A waxen countenance stirs at the window.

Perhaps that this hour stands still.

Before dull eyes blue images flutter

To the rhythm of the ships, which rock in the river.

At the alleyway a row of nuns blows by.

And clouds stir in the blue wind,

Like lovers, who embrace in sleep.

Perhaps flies swing around a carcass there,

Perhaps also a child weeps in the mother's lap.

At the window flowers wither warm and red,

Which one brought to the beautiful boy today.

How he lifted the hands and quietly laughed.

One prays there. Perhaps one lies dead.

It seems one also hears horrible screaming

And sees grimaces flickering in sultry vapor.

Piano-play sounds muted from bright rooms.

The clock in the deep green suddenly strikes three.

A black procession floats out of there again.

Then one hears chorales still sounding far away.

Perhaps also in the hall angels sing.

In the garden white poppy flutters dreamlike.

Human Mourning

The clock that strikes five before the sun -

A dark terror grips lonely people,

In the evening garden rotten trees swish,

The dead one's countenance stirs at the window.

Perhaps this hour stands still.

Before dull eyes blue images flutter

To the rhythm of the ships, which rock in the river.

At the wharf a row of nuns blows by.

It seems one hears the bats' scream;

In the garden a coffin is cobbled together.

Bones shimmer through decayed walls

And blackish a madman staggers past.

A blue beam freezes to death in the autumn clouds.

The lovers embrace in sleep,

Leaning on the angels' star-wings,

Laurel adorns the noble one's pale temple.

[Landscape]

September evening, or the dark calls of the shepherds,

Smell of thyme. Glowing iron sprays in the smithy

Enormously a black horse rears up; the hyacinthine lock of the maid

Snatches after the fervency of its purple nostrils.

The cry of the partridge stiffens to yellow walls a plow rusting in rotting manure

Quietly red wine flows, the soft guitar in the inn.

O death! The ill soul's decayed arch silence and childhood.

With mad faces the bats flutter up

Elis

Perfect is the stillness of this golden day.

Under ancient oaks

You appear, Elis, as one at rest with round eyes.

Their blue mirrors the slumber of lovers.

By your mouth

Their rosy sighs fell silent.

In the evening the fisherman hauled in the heavy nets.

A good shepherd

Leads his flock along the forest's edge.

O how righteous, Elis, are all your days.

A cheerful meaning

Dwells in the winegrowers' dark singing,

The blue stillness of the olive tree.

Elis

1

Elis, when the blackbird calls in the black woods,
This is your decline.
Your lips drink the coolness of the blue rock-spring.

Cease, when your forehead bleeds quietly
Ancient legends
And dark interpretations of the flight of birds.

But with gentle steps you walk into the night,
That hangs full of purple grapes,
And you move the arms more beautifully in the blueness.

A thorn bush tinges,
Where your moon-like eyes are.
O! how long, Elis , have you been dead.

Your body is a hyacinth,

Into which a monk dips his waxy fingers.
Our silence is a black cavern;

From which a soft animal steps at times
And slowly lowers heavy eyelids.
On your temples black dew drips,

2

Perfect is the stillness of this golden day.
Under ancient oaks
You appear, Elis, as one at rest with round eyes.

Their blue mirrors the slumber of lovers.
By your mouth
Their rosy sighs fell silent.

In the evening the fisherman hauled in the heavy nets.
A good shepherd
Leads his flock along the forest's edge.
O! how righteous, Elis, are all your days.

A cheerful meaning

Dwells in the winegrowers' dark singing,

The blue stillness of the olive tree.

3

A soft glockenspiel sounds in Elis' breast

In the evening,

When his head sinks into the black pillow.

A blue animal

quietly bleeds in the thorn bushes.

A brown tree stands alone there;

Its blue fruits have fallen away.

Signs and stars

Sink down quietly in the evening pond.

Behind the hill it has become winter.

Blue doves

Drink at night the gold sweat

That runs down Elis' crystal forehead.

Always

God's icy breath sounds along black walls.

[Hohenburg]

The father's house empty and dead,

Dark hour

And the awakening in the dusking garden.

You always imagine the white countenance of man

Far from the turmoil of time.

Over a dreaming shape green branches like to bend;

Cross and evening,

The sounding one is embraced with purple arms by his star

And the ringing of bluish flowers.

December

The coat in the black wind; quietly the dry reeds whisper

In the stillness of the moor. In the gray sky

A flock of wild birds follows -

Slanting over sinister waters.

Through bleak birches the bony hands glide.

The step cracks in brown woods

Where to die a lonesome animal dwells.

Old women crossed the way

Into the village. Spiders fell from their eyes

And red snow. Crows and long bell-ringing

Accompany the black path, Endymion's smile

And moony slumber

And the metal forehead gropes freezing through the hazel bushes

Anticipate the evening in the inn

Dwelling in purple cave of wine,

From the wallpaper the drunkard's shadow soundlessly sinks.

For hours hairy snow falls against the window,

The night hunts the sky with black flags and broken masts.

[At the Moor]

Coat in the black wind. Quietly the still reeds whisper

In the stillness of the moor; in the gray sky

A flock of wild birds follows;

Slanting over sinister waters.

Bony the hands glide through bleak birches,

The step cracks in brown grove,

Where to die a lonely animal dwells.

Turmoil. In decayed hut

A fallen angel flutters with black wings,

Shadow of the cloud; and the insanity of the tree;

Cry of the magpie. Old woman crosses the way

Into the village. Under black branches

O what banishes the step with curse and fire

Mute bell-ringing; nearness of the snow.

Storm. The dark spirit of putrescence in the moor

And the gloom of grazing herds.

Silently the night hunts

The sky with broken masts.

At the Moor

Wanderer in the black wind; quietly the dry reeds whisper

In the stillness of the moor. In the gray sky

A flock of wild birds follows;

Slanting over gloomy waters.

Turmoil. In decayed hut

The spirit of putrescence flutters with black wings.

Crippled birches in the autumn wind.

Evening in deserted tavern. The way home is scented all around

By the soft gloom of grazing herds;

Apparition of the night; toads plunge from brown waters.

Summer

Summer under lime-whitewashed arches,

Yellowed corn, a bird which flies in and out

Evening and the dark smells of green.

Red person, on the dusking way, whereto?

Over lonely hill, past the bony house

Over the stages of the forest the silver heart dances.

At the Mönchsberg

Where in the shadow of autumnal elms the ruined path sinks downward,

Far from the huts of foliage, sleeping shepherds,

Always the dark figure of coolness follows the wanderer

Over the bony footbridge, the hyacinthine voice of the boy,

Quietly telling the forgotten legend of the forest;

Softer a sick shape now and listening in the insanity.

Gently a scanty green caresses the knee of the stranger,

A mild God the very exhausted forehead,

Silverly the step fumbles back into the stillness.

Memory
(Fragment)

Silently the child dwelled in nocturnal cave listening in the blue wave of the spring to the ringing of a radiant flower. And the pale figure of the mother stepped out of the decayed wall and sleepwalking she carried the sorrow-born in slumbering hands into the garden. And the stars were drops of blood shimmering in the bleak branches of the old tree and they fell in the nocturnal ones hairy hair, and the boy quietly lifted the purple eyelids, the silver forehead sighing in the night wind.
   Wakening in the evening garden in the quiet shadow of the father, o how frightens this radiant head suffering in blue coolness and the silence in autumnal rooms. A golden boat the sun sank at the lonely hill and the serious treetops fall mute overhead. Silently the slumbering countenance of the sister encounters in moist blueness, buried in her scarlet-colored hair. Blackish the night followed the other one.
   What forces to stand so silently on the decayed spiral staircase in the house of the fathers and the flickering candlestick expires in lank hands. Hour of lonely sinisterness, mute awakening in the hallway in the sallow web of the moon. O the smile of evil sad and cold, so that the sleeping woman's rosy cheek pales. In showers a black linen veiled the window. And a flame jumped out of the other one's heart and it burned silverly in darkness, a singing star. Silently childhood's crystalline paths sank in the garden

In Winter

When the snow falls against the window,

The evening bell rings long,

The table is prepared for many,

And the house is well cultivated.

Some in their wanderings

Come to the gate on dark paths.

Love's soft power tends

His wound full of grace.

O! the pure agony of man.

Who mutely struggled with angels,

Defeated by holy pain,

Reaches silently for God's bread and wine.

[Autumn Soul]

Deeply in green the scythe mows

Blue air, yellowed sheaves.

Voices flew up, deceased

Only an old water goes.

In the evening the dark journey goes

Over brown autumn hills

Silverly a pond-mirror greets

The hawk cries bright and hard.

Evening Mirror

A child with brown hair. In moist evening-coolness

A step frightens away blackish flames

Into the dark-gold frame of sunflowers;

A gentle animal sinks on a red puddle.

A shadow glides bony over the mirror

And quietly a red mouth emerges

From blue asters' silence, an enigmatic seal,

And black eyes shine from the branches

Of the maple, whose mad redness dazzles.

A soft body has left the wall,

A blue brightness which ends in dusk.

The wind quietly rattles in the empty lanes.

At the open window the hours of the loving one

Wither silently. The clouds' bold journeys

Are joined with the path of the lonely one.

A gaze sinks silverly in the brown garden.

The water's somber moving stirs the hands.

A pious spirit ripens in the crystal, clear.

Unspeakable is the flight of birds, encounter

With the dying; after this dark years follow.

[Decline]

In the evening, when we go home through golden summers

The shadows of glad saints are with us.

Softer the vine greens all around, the grain yellows

O my brother what rest is in the world.

Embraced we plunge in blue waters,

The dark grotto of manly gloom

The ways of the putrefied cross on meager paths ,

But we rest blissful ones in the sunset.

Peace, where the colors of the autumn shine

Overhead the walnut tree of our old yesteryears rustles

[Decline]

When we go home through golden summers

The shadows of glad saints are with us.

Softer the vines green all around, the grain yellows

O my brother, what stillness is in the world.

Overhead the maple rustles our old yesteryears

The coolness of blue waters blows on us,

The dark mirrors of male gloom

O my brother, the sweetness of the evening is ripening

Quietly the air sounds by the lonely hill

In former times Daedalus' spirit

Died off in rosy sighs

O my brother, the landscape of the soul transforms darkly

[Decline]

When we go through our summers' purple darkness

The shadows of sad monks step before us.

Lankier the vines glow all around, the grain yellows

O my brother, what stillness is in the world.

Overhead the oak rustles our old yesteryears

The countenance of stony waters blows on us,

The round grottos of manly gloom,

O my brother the black nights of rosaries ripen inside.

Further in the past the air sounds by a lonely hill,

A lover's drunken string-play.

Under arches of thorns

O my brother, we climb blind pointers toward midnight.

Decline

Under the dark arches of our gloom

The shadows of deceased angels play in the evening.

Over the white pond

The wild birds have transmigrated.

Dreaming under white willows

Our cheeks caress yellowed stars,

The forehead of past nights bends in here.

Always the countenance of our white grave stares at us.

Quietly the air decays by a lonely hill,

The bleak walls of the autumnal grove.

Under arches of thorns

O my brother we climb blind pointers toward midnight.

.

At the Hill

A dark deer passed off silently at the edge

Of the forest

At the hill the evening wind ends quietly,

Soon the blackbird's lament grows mute

And autumn flutes

Silence in the reeds.

With silver thorns

The frost strikes us,

Dying we bend over graves

Blue clouds peel away above;

Out of black decay

God's radiant angels step

Wanderers Sleep

Always the white night leans on the rock

Where the pine rises in silver tones

Stone and stars are.

Over the flooding brook the bony footbridge arches

The dark figure of coolness follows the sleeper,

Sickle moon in rosy ravine.

Far away slumbering shepherd. In old rock

The toad looks from crystal eyes

The blossoming wind awakes, the silver-voice

Of the deathlike man.

Quietly telling the forgotten legend of the forest

The white face of the angel

Quietly the [...] foam of the water endears his knee

Rosy bud

The singing one's sad bird-mouth.

A beautiful shine awakes on his forehead

Stone and star

In which the white stranger anciently dwelled.

Passion

When Orpheus silverly stirs the lyre,

Lamenting a dead shape in the evening garden,

Who are you resting under high trees?

The lament rustles the autumnal reeds,

The blue pond.

Woe over the narrow figure of the boy,

Which glows purple,

Over the hurtful mother, in blue coat

Cloaking her holy dishonor.

Woe over the born, that he would die

Before he enjoyed the glowing fruit,

Which is bitter, of guilt.

Who do you weep under dusking trees?

The sister, dark love

Of a wild race,

Which the day rushes away from on golden wheels.

O, that more piously the night would come,

Kristus.

What do you silence under black trees?

The star-frost of winter,

God's birth

And the shepherds by the manger of straw.

Blue moons,

The eyes of the blind sank into hairy cave.

A corpse, you search for your bride

Under greening trees,

The silver rose

Hovering over the nocturnal hill.

Wandering by the black shores

Of death,

Hell's flower blossoms purple in the heart.

Bent over sighing waters

See your spouse: countenance staring with leprosy

And her hair flutters wildly in the night.

Two wolves in the sinister forest,

We mixed our blood in stony embrace

And the stars of our race fell on us.

O, the sting of death.

Faded ones, we look on ourselves at the crossroad

And in silver eyes

The black shadows of our wilderness are mirrored,

Gruesome laughter which broke our mouths.

Thorny stages sink into darkness,

So that the blood pours

More red from cool feet on the stony acre.

On purple flood

The silver sleeping woman sways waking.

But the other one became a snowy tree

By the hill of bones,

A deer eying from ulcerating wound,

Again a silent stone.

O, the soft star-hour

Of this crystalline rest,

When in thorny chamber

The leprous countenance fell from you.

Nightly the soul's lonely string-play sounds

Full of dark ecstasy

To the silver feet of the penitent women

In the lost garden;

And by thorny hedges the blue spring buds.

Under dark olive trees

The rosy angel

Of morning steps from the grave of the lovers.

Passion

When Orpheus silverly stirs the lyre,

Lamenting a dead shape in the evening garden -

Who are you resting under high trees?

The lament rustles the autumnal reeds,

The blue pond.

Woe over the narrow figure of the boy,

Which glows purple,

Over the hurtful mother, in blue coat

Cloaking her holy dishonor.

Woe over the born, that he would die,

Before he enjoyed the glowing fruit,

Which is bitter, of guilt.

Who do you weep under dusking trees?

The sister, dark love

Of a wild race,

Which the day rushes away from on golden wheels.

O, that more piously the night would come,

Kristus.

A corpse, you search for your bride

under greening trees,

The silver rose

Hovering over the nocturnal hill.

Wandering by the black shores

Of death,

Hell's flower blossoms purple in the heart.

Bent over sighing waters

See your spouse: countenance staring with leprosy

And her hair flutters wildly in the night.

Two wolves in the sinister forest,

We mixed our blood in stony embrace

And the stars of our race fell on us.

O, the sting of death.

Faded ones, we look on ourselves at the crossroad

And in silver eyes

The black shadows of our wilderness are mirrored,

Gruesome laughter which broke our mouths.

Thorny stages sink into darkness,

So that the blood pours

More red from cool feet on the stony field.

On purple flood

The silver sleeping woman sways waking.

But the other one became a snowy tree

By the hill of bones,

A deer eying from ulcerating wound,

Again a silent stone.

O, the soft star-hours

Of this crystalline rest,

When in thorny chamber

The leprous countenance fell from you.

Nightly the soul's lonely string-play sounds

Full of dark ecstasy

To the silver feet of the penitent women

In the blue stillness

And atonement of the olive tree.

[Limbo]

By the edge of the forest - the shadows of dead ones dwell there -

By the hill a golden boat sinks, the clouds' blue rest

Grazing in the brown stillness of the oaks. The heart

Breathes hairy fear, chalice overflowing with purple afterglow,

Dark gloom. The eavesdropper in the leaves, a clergyman

Escorts the step down the decayed path.

Coolness blows after from lamenting mouth, as if a slight corpse followed.

Occident

Decayed hamlets sank

In the brown November,

The dark paths of the villagers

Under crippled

Apple trees, the laments

Of the women in the silver veil.

The fathers' race dies off.

The evening wind is fulfilled

With sighs

For the spirit of the forests.

Silently the footbridge leads

To cloudy roses

A pious deer at the hill

And the blue springs

Sound in the dark,

So that a soft shape,

A child will be born.

Quietly the shadow left the stranger

At the crossroad

And stonily his watching eyes

Go blind,

So that the song flows

More sweetly from the lip.

Since the night is

The dwelling of the lover,

The blue countenance is speechless

About a dead shape

The temple opened;

Crystalline sight;

After this on dark paths

Along walls

A dead shape follows.

Wanderings

So quiet are the green forests

Of our homeland

The sun sinks at the hill

And we have wept in sleep;

We wander with white steps

Along the thorny hedge

Singers in the summer of ears

And ones born in pain.

Already the grain ripens for man

And the holy vine

And in stony room,

In the cool the meal is prepared.

Also for the good

The heart is reconciled in green silence

And coolness of high trees

He distributes the food with soft hands.

Many things are a growing shape

In the starry night

And beautiful in the blueness,

A pale, breathing shape striding,

A string-play.

The brother and stranger

Leaned at the hill,

Abandoned by man, his moist

Eyelids sank

In unspeakable gloom.

From blackish clouds

Bitter poppy trickles.

The path silences moon-white

Along those poplars

And soon

The wanderings of man end,

Righteous tolerance.

Also the stillness of the children rejoices,

The nearness of the angels

On crystal meadow.

Occident

1

Decayed hamlets sank

In the brown November,

The dark paths of the villagers

Under crippled

Apple trees, the complaints

Of the women in the silver veil.

The fathers' race dies off.

The evening wind is fulfilled

With sighs

For the spirit of the forests.

Silently the footbridge leads

To cloudy roses

A pious deer at the hill

And the blue springs

Sound in the dark,

So that a soft shape,

A child will be born.

Quietly the shadow left the stranger

At the crossroad

And stonily his watching eyes

Go blind,

So that the song flows

More sweetly from the lip;

Since the night is

The dwelling of the lover,

The blue countenance is speechless

About a dead shape

The temple opened;

Crystalline sight;

After this on dark paths

Along walls

A dead shape follows.

2

When it has become night

Our stars appear in the sky

Under old olive trees,

Or along dark cypresses

We wander white ways;

Sword-bearing angel:

My brother.

The petrified mouth silences

The dark song of pain.

Again a dead shape encounters

In white linen

And many blossoms fall

Across the rock path.

Silverly a sick shape weeps,

Leper by the pond,

Where before times

Gladly in the afternoon lovers rested.

Or the steps of Elis

Ring through the grove,

The hyacinthine,

Again fading under oaks.

O the boy's figure

Formed from crystalline tears

And nocturnal shadows.

The forehead, cool, childlike,

Anticipates perfect shapes differently,

When over greening hill

Spring thunderstorm resounds.

3

So quiet are the green forests

Of our homeland,

The sun sinks by the hill

And we have wept in sleep;

Wandering with white steps

By the thorny hedge

Singers in the summer of ears

And ones born in pain.

Already the grain ripens for man

And the holy vine.

And in stony room,

In the cool, the meal is prepared.

Also for the good

The heart is reconciled in green silence

And coolness of high trees.

He distributes the food with soft hands.

Many things are a growing shape

In the starry night

And beautiful in the blueness,

A pale, breathing shape striding,

A string-play.

The brother and stranger

Leaned at the hill,

Abandoned by man, his moist

Eyelids sank

In unspeakable gloom.

From blackish clouds

Bitter poppy trickles.

The path silences moon-white

Along those poplars

And soon

The wanderings of man end,

Righteous tolerance.

Also the stillness of the children rejoices,

The nearness of the angels

On crystal meadow.

4

A boy with broken chest

Chanting dies away in the night.

Only let go silently by the hill

Under the trees

Followed by the shadow of the deer.

Sweetly the violets scent in the meadow-valley.

Or let step into the stony house,

In the grief-filled shadow of the mother

Bend the head.

In moist blueness the lamp shines

The entire night;

Because pain rests no more;

Also the white figures are

The breathing, the friends gone far away;

Enormously the walls all around silence.

5

When it dusks in the street

And a long departed shape

Encounters in blue linen,

O, how the sounding steps stagger

And the greening head silences.

Cities are constructed large

And stony on the plain;

But the homeless one follows

The wind with open forehead,

The trees at the hill;

Also the afterglowing often fears.

Soon the waters rush

Loud in the night,

The angel stirs

the crystal cheeks of a girl,

Her blond hair,

Burdened by the sister's tears.

Often this is love:

A blossoming thorn bush

Stirs the cold fingers of the stranger

In the passing by;

And the huts of the villagers recede

In the blue night.

In childlike stillness,

In corn, where speechless a cross rises,

His shadow and demise

Appears sighing to the looker.

Occident

1

Moon, as if a dead shape would step

From a blue cave,

And many blossoms fall

Across the rock path.

Silverly a sick shape weeps

By the evening pond,

In a black boat

Lovers have died crossing over.

Or the steps of Elis

Ring through the grove,

The hyacinthine,

Again fading under oaks.

O the boy's figure

Formed from crystalline tears,

Nocturnal shadows.

Jagged lightning illuminates the temple,

Always-cool,

When by the greening hill

Spring-thunderstorm resounds.

2

So quiet are the green forests

Of our homeland,

The crystalline wave

Dying on a decayed wall

And we have wept in sleep;

Wander with hesitant steps

Along the thorny hedge,

Singers in the summer evening,

In holy peace

Of the far away radiant vineyard

Shadows now in the cool lap

Of night, mourning eagles.

So quietly a moonbeam closes

The purple stigmata of gloom.

3

Radiantly the stony city nightfalls

On the plain.

A black shadow,

The stranger follows

The wind with dark forehead,

Bleak trees at the hill;

Also lonely afterglow

Fears in the heart

As if silver waters fell

Into the cool darkness -

O love, a blue

Thorn bush stirs

the cold temple,

Snowy night

With falling stars.

Along Walls

Never the golden countenance of spring;

Dark laughter in the hazel bushes. Evening walk in the forest

And the ardent cry of the blackbird.

Daylong the glowing green rushes in the soul of the stranger.

Metallic minute: midday, desperation of summer;

The shadows of the beeches and the yellowish corn.

Baptism in chaste waters. O the purple man.

But he resembles forest, pond and white deer.

Cross and church in the village. In dark conversation

Man and woman knew each other

And along a bleak wall the lonely one wanders with his stars.

Quietly over the moon- brightened ways of the forest

The wilderness of forgotten hunts sank.

Gaze of blue breaks from decayed rocks.

[Sleep]

Confidently you dark poisons

Producing white sleep

A most strange garden

Of dusking trees

Fulfilled with snakes, moths,

Bats;

Foreigner your woebegone shadow

Staggers, bitter misery

In the afterglow!

Ancient lonely waters

Sank in the sand.

White stags at the border of night

Stars perhaps!

Wrapped in spider webs

Dead sputum shimmers.

Iron gazing.

Thorns hover around

The blue path into the village,

A purple laughter

The eavesdropper in the empty inn.

Over the floorboard

Evil's enormous shadow

Dances moon-white.

To

The coolness of dark years, pain and hope,

Is preserved by this brown rafters,

Over which Dahlias hang flamingly.

As if a golden helmet sank from bleeding forehead

The day ends silently,

Childhood watches softly from blackish eyes.

Quietly the red beeches shine in the evening.

Love, hope so that dew drops

From blue eyelids irresistibly.

Lonely homecoming! The dark calls of the fishermen

Sound always by the dusking river.

Love, night, gloom's crystalline minutes

Shimmering beyond, stars, already quieter beholding

In Snow

Contemplate the truth -

Much pain!

Finally enthusiasm

Up to death.

Winter night

You pure monkess!

Sight

Since the autumn so red and quiet

Under elm trees dark agony

Dusking village and love feast

Hawk beckons on golden journey.

Forehead bleeds soft and dark

Sunflower withers by the fence

Gloom blues in the womb of the women;

God's word in star-glitter!

Purply mouth and lies flicker.

Cool in decayed room,

Only laughter shines, golden play,

That a storm would smash this head

At night with lightnings; blackish

Foul fruits fall at night from the tree.

Child at your blue hemline

I must mutely wander past.

To the Night

Monkess enclose me in your darkness,

Cross in cool star-glitter.

Purply mouth and lies broke

A bell's final knells.

Night your lecherous cloud-darkness

Red fruit, cursed lie

A bell's final knells –

Bleeding cross in the star-glitter.

To the Night

Nymph draw me into your darkness;

Aster freezes and sways by the fence,

Gloom blossoms in the womb of the women,

Bleeding cross in the star-glitter.

Purply mouth and lies broke

Cool in the decayed chamber;

Laughter still shines, golden play,

A bell's final knells.

Blue cloud! Blackish

Foul fruits fall dully from the tree

And the room becomes the grave,

And dreary wandering on earth the dream.

General survey of the Trakl-Site:

The Poetry and Letters
Kaleidoskope der Mehrdeutigkeit
Materials on Trakl
email

and the
German version of the Trakl-Site.