In the lonely hours of the spirit
It is beautiful to walk in the sun
Along the yellow walls of summer.
Quietly the steps sound in the grass; but always
The son of Pan sleeps in the gray marble.
Evenings on the terrace we got drunk with brown wine.
The peach glows reddish in the foliage;
Soft sonata, glad laughter.
Beautiful is the stillness of night.
On a dark plain
We meet ourselves with shepherds and white stars.
When autumn has come
A sober clarity appears in the grove.
Calmed we stroll along red walls
And the round eyes follow the flight of birds.
In the evening the white water sinks into funeral urns.
In bleak branches the sky celebrates.
In pure hands the countryman carries bread and wine
And peacefully the fruits ripen in a sunny chamber.
O how serious is the countenance of the beloved dead.
But righteous viewing delights the soul.
The silence of the ravaged garden is immense,
When the young novice wreaths his forehead with brown leaves,
His breath drinks icy gold.
The hands touch the age of bluish waters
Or in cold night the white cheeks of the sisters.
Quiet and harmonious is a walk along friendly rooms,
Where solitude is and the maple’s rustling,
Where perhaps the thrush still sings.
Man is beautiful and appearing in darkness,
When marveling he moves arms and legs,
And the eyes roll silently in purple sockets.
At vespers the stranger looses himself in black November-destruction,
Under rotten branches, along walls full of leprosy,
Where before the holy brother had walked,
Rapt in the soft string music of his insanity,
O how lonely the evening wind ends.
Dying away the head bends down in the darkness of the olive tree.
Devastating is the decline of the race.
In this hour the eyes of the beholder fill themselves
With the gold of his stars.
In the evening a glockenspiel sinks down that no longer rings,
The black walls by the square decay,
The dead soldier calls for prayer.
A pale angel
The son steps into the empty house of his fathers.
The sisters have gone far away to white old men.
At night the sleeper found them under columns in the hallway,
Returned from sad pilgrimages.
O how their hair stiffens with excrement and worms,
When he stands into it with silver feet,
And those step deceased from bleak rooms.
O you psalms in fiery midnight rains,
When servants smite the mild eyes with nettles,
The childlike fruits of the elderberry
Bend astonished over an empty grave.
Quietly yellowed moons roll
Over the youth’s fevered linen,
Before the silence of winter follows.
An exalted destiny ponders down the Kidron,
Where the cedar, a gentle creature,
Unfolds under the blue brows of the father,
Over the meadow at night a shepherd leads his flock.
Or there are screams in sleep,
When a brazen angel approaches man in the grove,
The saint’s flesh melts on the glowing grate.
Around the clay huts purple vines climb,
Resounding sheaves of yellowed corn,
The humming of bees, the flight of the crane.
In the evening the resurrected meet on rocky paths.
In black waters lepers are reflected;
Or they open their excrement-tainted robes
Weeping to the balmy wind, that blows from the rosy hill.
Slender maids grope through the alleys of the night,
If they may find the loving shepherd.
Saturdays a soft singing sounds in the huts.
Let the song also commemorate the boy,
His insanity, and white brows and his passing away,
The decayed one, who bluishly opens the eyes.
O how sad is this reunion.
The stages of insanity in black rooms,
The shadows of the aged under the open door,
When Helian’s soul looks at itself in the rosy mirror
And snow and leprosy sink from his forehead.
On the walls the stars are expired
And the white figures of the light.
Skeletons from the graves rise out of the carpet,
The silence of decayed crosses on the hill,
The sweetness of incense in the purple night wind.
O you shattered eyes in black mouths,
When the grandson in soft derangement
Ponders alone the darker ending,
The silent God lowers blue eyelids over him.