Poems (1913)

By Georg Trakl

The Austrian poet Georg Trakl (1887-1914) wrote with a singular voice that captivated a wide range of admirers: the philosophers Heidegger and Wittgenstein; fellow writers and poets like Beckett, Rilke, and Walser; and composers such as Webern and Hindemith.

Two collections of his poetry were prepared for publication during his

• Language: English
• Publisher: Patrick Wang
• Release date: Aug 3, 2021
• ISBN: 9781735686561

Georg Trakl

(1887-1914). Poeta austriaco, dedicó su breve vida por entero a la creación poética. Es considerado uno de los poetas más importantes del siglo xx, así como uno de los iniciadores de las vanguardias y el expresionismo literario.

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The Austrian poet Georg Trakl (1887-1914) wrote with a singular voice that captivated a wide range of admirers: the philosophers Heidegger and Wittgenstein; fellow writers and poets like Beckett, Rilke, and Walser; and composers such as Webern and Hindemith.

Two collections of his poetry were prepared for publication during his lifetime. The vast majority of poems in the first book, Poems (1913), feature crystalline meters and regular rhyme schemes that produce a hypnotic music. In the second book, Sebastian in a Dream (1915), the reverse is true, and most poems are written in free verse.

These translations reproduce the musical experience of the first book for the English reader. Here the formal elements provide a little air, a little lift on which the poet’s simple words and surprising invocations go gliding by in all their mystery.

The Ravens

Past the black corner in a scurry

At noon come the ravens with hardened cries.

Their shadow wandering passing the hind

And sometimes resting and seeming surly.

O how they disturb the brown quiescence,

In which a field had been entranced,

Like a woman, grave foreboding enchants,

And sometimes one hears their disagreements

Round a corpse, that their senses discover,

And quickly off to the north they will fly

And fades the funerary file

Off soaring, with a lusty shudder.

The Youthful Maid

Dedicated to Ludwig von Ficker

1

Often at the well, at twilight,

You can see her spellbound standing

Drawing water, at the twilight.

Bucket up and then descending.

In the beeches jackdaws flutter

And she’s like a shadowed being.

How her yellow hairs will flutter

And the courtyard rats are screaming.

And caressed by the decaying

Burning eyelids are descending.

Withered grasses lean decaying

Bordering her feet and bending.

2

She sows silence in the chamber

And the courtyard long abandoned.

In the elder by the chamber

Piteously pipes the blackbird.

Silver image in the mirror

Strangely in the twilight shining

And the paleness dims in mirror

And its pureness terrifying.

Dreamlike sings a slave in darkness

And she’s staring racked with sadness.

Redness dripping through the darkness.

South wind on the gateway crashes.

3

Nighttime over barren meadow

Where in