Grodek

At evening, autumn forests resound

With deadly weapons across the golden plains

And blue lakes, while overhead the sun

Rolls on more darkly. Night embraces   

The dying warriors and the wild lament                                             5

Of their mangled mouths. 

Yet silently in the pastureland, 

Red clouds inhabited by an angry god

Gather shed blood, lunar coldness.                             

All roads lead to black decay.                                                             10

Under the golden bough of night and stars 

The sister’s shadow sways through the silent grove              

To greet the ghosts of heroes, the bleeding heads;

And in the reeds dark flutes of autumn softly sound.  

O nobler grief!--you brazen altars,                                                     15

Today a great pain feeds the hot flame of the mind,  

The unborn grandchildren. 

Georg Trakl 

Translated by John Cobley