OCCIDENT I
The moon—a white corpse stepping forth from a blue cavern; and blossoms are showered in multitudes across the stone path. Something diseased weeps silver by the evening pond. On a black boat of Charon lovers float away, toward Death.
Or Elis’s footsteps that toll through the hyacinthine grove, echoing under oaks once more. O the boy’s phantom form, molded from tears of crystal, nocturnal shadows. Jagged lightning sears his temple, ever-cold; and on the greening hills spring’s thunder crashes. Hushed now are the dark forests of our homeland; the crystal wave dies against crumbling walls. And we have wept in our sleep, wandered with faltering steps along the thorn-spiked hedge in the gloomy twilight of summer, in the holy stillness of the distant vineyard’s flames. Now shadows crowd night’s cold womb—mourning eagles. So softly a moonbeam seals the purple stigmata of melancholy.
— Georg Trakl (1914)
via Twilight of Humanity
(translation copyright © Oliver Sheppard)