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“Dusk” by Georg Trakl 🇦🇹 (3 Feb 1887 – 3 Nov 1914)
Translated from the German by Jim Doss & Werner Schmitt
In the courtyard, bewitched by milky twilight,
Through autumn-bronze gentle sick people glide.
Their waxy-round gaze ponders golden times,
Fulfilled with daydream and rest and wine.
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Their wasting illness shuts itself in ghostly.
The stars spread white sadness.
In grayness, fulfilled by deception and ringing,
See, how the frightful ones scatter in confusion.
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Formless figures of ridicule they shoo, crouch down
And flutter on black-crossed paths.
O! mournful shadows on the walls.
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The others escape through darkening arcades,
And at night they fall from red showers
Of the star-wind, like raging Maenads.