(P/B) THE POEMS OF GEORG TRAKL

Παρουσίαση

This collection of Trakl's essential poetry contains the two books published in his lifetime, Gedichte (Poems, 1913) and Sebastian im Traum (Sebastian in a Dream, 1914), together with the later poems published in the magazine Der Brenner which might have formed the nucleus of a third collection. His starkly beautiful, musical poems are rightly regarded as being among the early twentieth century's most original poetry. From a life marred by drug addiction and breakdowns, he created work of great depth and power, brought hauntingly to life in Margitt Lehbert's close and sympathetic versions. (From the publisher)

TO THE BOY ELIS
Elis, when the blackbird calls in the black wood,
This is your destruction.
Your lips drink the cool of the blue rock-spring.
When your brow gently bleeds, forsake
Ancient legends
And dark readings of the flight of birds.
But you walk with soft steps into the night
Where purple grapes hang thick
And you move your arms more gracefully in the blue.
A thorn-bush sounds
Where your moonlike eyes are.
O how long, Elis, have you been deceased.
Your body is a hyacinth
Into which a monk dips his waxen ?ngers.
Our silence is a black cave
From which sometimes a gentle beast emerges
And slowly lowers heavy eyelids.
Black dew drips upon your forehead,
The last gold of crumbling stars.
[Translated by Margitt Lehbert]