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“The Beautiful City” by Georg Trakl 🇦🇹 (3 Feb 1887 – 3 Nov 1914)
Translated from the German by Jim Doss & Werner Schmitt
Old plazas remain in sunny silence.
Deeply spun in blue and gold
Soft nuns hasten dreamlike
Under the sultry beech trees’ silence.
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Out of the brownly illuminated churches
Death’s pure images look,
Mighty princes’ beautiful emblems.
Crowns shimmer in the churches.
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Steeds plunge out of the fountain.
Flower-claws threaten from trees.
Boys play woozy from dreams
Quietly in the evening there at the fountain.
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Girls stand at the gates,
Look timidly into the colorful life.
Their moist lips quiver
And they wait at the gates.
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Bell-sounds flutter trembling,
Rhythm of march and the guard’s call resonate.
Strangers listen on the stages.
High in the blue are organ sounds.
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Bright instruments sing.
Through the garden’s borders of foliage
The laughter of beautiful ladies whirs by.
Quietly young mothers sing.
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Secretly at flowery windows
Scent of incense, tar and lilac wafts.
Tired eyelids flicker silverly
Through the flowers at the windows.