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1 " The dark eagles, sleep and death,Rustle all night around my head:The golden statue of manIs swallowed by the icy comberOf eternity. On the frightening reefThe purple remains go to pieces,And the dark voice mournsOver the sea.Sister in my wild despairLook, a precarious skiff is sinkingUnder the stars,The face of night whose voice is fading. "
― Georg Trakl , Twenty Poems of Georg Trakl
2 " Not your dark poisons again,White sleep!This fantastically strange gardenOf trees in deepening twilightFills up with serpents, nightmoths,Spiders, bats.Approaching stranger!Your abandoned shadowIn the red of eveningIs a dark pirate shipOf the salty oceans of confusion.White birds from the outskirts of the nightFlutter out over the shuddering citiesOf steel. "
3 " Vision of the night: toads plunge from silver waters. "
4 " At evening the complaint of the cuckooGrows still in the wood.The grain bends its head deeper,The red poppy.Darkening thunder drivesOver the hill.The old song of the cricketDies in the field.The leaves of the chestnut treeStir no more.Your clothes rustleOn the winding stair.The candle gleams silentlyIn the dark room;A silver handPuts the light out;Windless, starless night. "
5 " These mountains: blackness, silence, and snow.The red hunter climbs down from the forest;Oh the mossy gaze of the wild thing.The peace of the mother: under black firsThe sleeping hands open by themselvesWhen the cold moon seems ready to fall.The birth of man. Each nightBlue water washes over the rockbase of the cliff;The fallen angel stares at his reflection with sighs,Something pale wakes up in a suffocating room.The eyesOf the stony old woman shine, two moons.The cry of the woman in labor. The night troublesThe boy’s sleep with black wings,With snow, which falls with ease out of the purpleclouds. "