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“Evening Song” by Georg Trakl 🇦🇹 (3 Feb 1887 – 3 Nov 1914)
Translated from the German by Jim Doss & Werner Schmitt
In the evening, when we go on dark paths,
Our pale figures appear before us.
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If we thirst,
We drink the white water of the pond,
The sweetness of our sad childhood.
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Deceased, we rest under the elder bushes,
Watch the gray gulls.
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Spring’s clouds rise over the sinister city,
That silences the monks’ nobler times.
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When I took your narrow hands
You quietly opened round eyes.
This is long ago.
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Yet when the dark harmony visits my soul,
You appear white in the friend’s autumnal landscape.