Georg Trakl

3 February 1887 - 3 November 1914 / Salzburg

The Elegy

The girlfriend juggling with green flowers

Plays in moony gardens -

O! what glows behind yew hedges!

Golden mouth which stirs my lips,

And they ring out like the stars

Over the brook Kidron.

But the star-nebulas sink over the plain,

Dance wildly and unspeakably.

O! my girlfriend your lips

Pomegranate lips

Ripen on my crystalline mouth of shells.

Heavily the golden silence

Of the plain rests on us.

The blood of the children

Murdered by Herod

Steams to heaven.
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