Psalm

By Georg Trakl

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.

Quaint Spring 

Probably around the deep midday,

I lay on an old stone,

Before me in quaint dress

Three angels stood in the sunshine.

O ominous spring year!

In the acre the last snow melted,

And the birch's hair hung quivering

In the cold, clear lake.

From the sky a blue ribbon blew,

And beautifully a cloud flowed within,

Facing it, I lay dreaming -

The angels kneeled in sunshine.

Loudly a bird sang marvelous stories,

And at once I could understand it:

Still before your first desire is satisfied,

You must go die, must go die!