Georg Trakl, "The Evening"

[the_grynne]

THE EVENING

With the ghostly shapes of dead heroes
Moon, you fill
The growing silence of the forest,
Sickle moon -
With the gentle embraces
Of lovers,
And with ghosts of famous ages
All around the crumbling rocks;
The moon shines with such blue light
Upon the city,
Where a decaying generation
Lives, cold and evil -
A dark future prepared
For the pale grandchild.
Your shadows swallowed by the moon
Sighing upward in the empty goblet
Of the mountain lake.

GEORG TRAKL

Translated by Robert Bly and James Wright