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“De Profundis” by Georg Trakl 🇦🇹 (3 Feb 1887 – 3 Nov 1914)
Translated from the German by Jim Doss & Werner Schmitt
There is a stubble field on which a black rain falls.
There is a tree which, brown, stands lonely here.
There is a hissing wind which haunts deserted huts—
How sad this evening.
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Past the village pond
The gentle orphan still gathers scanty ears of corn.
Golden and round her eyes are gazing in the dusk
And her lap awaits the heavenly bridegroom.
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Returning home
Shepherds found the sweet body
Decayed in the bramble bush.
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A shade I am remote from sombre hamlets.
The silence of God
I drank from the woodland well.
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On my forehead cold metal forms.
Spiders look for my heart.
There is a light that fails in my mouth.
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At night I found myself upon a heath,
Thick with garbage and the dust of stars.
In the hazel copse
Crystal angels have sounded once more.