Georg Trakl

"En-route"

 In the evening they carried the stranger into the chamber of the dead;

A smell of tar; the quiet rustling of red sycamores;

The dark flight of the jackdaws; a guard entered the square.

The sun has sunk into black linens; again and again this past evening returns.

From an adjoining room, the sister plays a sonata from Schubert.

Very quietly her smile sinks into the decayed fountain

Which murmurs bluish in the dusk. O how old is our race.

Somebody whispers down there in the garden; somebody has left this black sky.

On the cabinet apples smell. Grandmother lights golden candles.

O, how mild is the autumn. Quietly our steps sound in the old park

Under tall trees. O, how serious is the hyacinthine countenance of the dusk.

The blue spring by your feet, mysteriously the red silence of your mouth,

Overshadowed by the slumber of foliage, the dark gold of decayed sunflowers.

Your eyelids are heavy from poppy and dream quietly on my forehead.

Soft bells tremble through the breast. A blue cloud,

Your countenance has sunk over me in the dusk.

A song with guitar, that sounds out in a strange inn,

The wild elder bushes there, a long past November day,

Familiar steps on the dusking staircase, the sight of brown rafters,

An open window in which a sweet hope stayed behind -

All this is unspeakable, o God, that one breaks down on the knees shaken.

O, how dark is this night. A purple flame

Expired at my mouth. In the stillness,

The anxious soul's lonely string music dies down.

Cease, when drunk with wine the head sinks into the gutter.


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.