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“Autumn Evening” by Georg Trakl 🇦🇹 (3 Feb 1887 – 3 Nov 1914)
Translated from the German by Jim Doss & Werner Schmitt
The brown village. A darkness is often reflected
By striding along walls that stand in autumn,
Figures: both man and woman, deceased walk
In cool rooms to prepare the bed of those.
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Here boys play. Heavy shadows widen
Over brown manure. Maids walk
Through moist blueness and sometimes they look
Out of eyes fulfilled with night-chimes.
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For the lonely there is an inn;
It waits patiently under dark arches,
Where golden clouds of tobacco move around.
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Yet always the self is black and near.
The drunk ponders in the shadow of ancient arches
After the wild birds that are drawn far away.