Georg Trakl

3 February 1887 - 3 November 1914 / Salzburg

To Angela

1

A lonely destiny in abandoned rooms

A soft insanity gropes on wallpapers.

Beds of geraniums flow by windows,

Daffodils also and more chaste in wasting away

As alabaster which gleams in the garden.

In blue veils India's mornings smile.

Their sweet incense scares away the stranger's worries,

Sleepless night by the pond because of Angela.

His pain rests hidden in an empty mask,

Thoughts which steal away blackly in the darkness.

The thrushes laugh all around from soft throats.
2

The fruits which round red in branches,-

Angela's lips which show her sweetness,

Like nymphs who bend over springs

In restful viewing for long hours,

The green-gold, long hours of the afternoon.

However, sometimes the spirit returns to fight and game.

In golden clouds a battle melee surges

And a hyacinth-like thing floats from mazy cresses.

A demon ponders thunderstorms in the sultriness,

In the grave's shadow of sad cypresses.

Then the first lightning falls from black flues.
3

The June willows' whisper in the evening;

A rain resounds long in flute sounds.

How motionless the birds hang in the gray!

And here Angela's rest in the dim branches;

The poet is this beauty's priest.

His mouth is flowed around by dark coolness.

In the valley fog softy rests poured out.

By the edge of the forest and gloom's shadow

A golden thing floats flowing from his mouth

By the edge of the forest and gloom's shadow.

Night embraces his drunken languishing.
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