To Angela (2nd Version) Poem by Georg Trakl

1



A lonely destiny in abandoned rooms.

A soft insanity gropes on wallpapers,

On windows, reddish beds of geraniums,

Daffodils also and more chaste in wasting away

As alabaster which gleams in the garden.

In blue veils India 's mornings smile.

Their sweet incense scares away the stranger's worries,

Sleepless night by the pond because of Angela.

His pain rests hidden in an empty mask,

Thoughts which steal away blackly in the darkness.

The thrushes laugh all around from soft throats.


2



In the crossway surrounded by spiky grass

The mowers crouch tiredly and drunk with poppy,

The sky has sunk very heavy on them,

The milk and desolation of long midday bells.

And sometimes crows flutter up in the rye.

With fruit and horrors the hot earth grows.

In golden brilliance, o childish gesture

Of lust and its hyacinthine silence,

When bread and wine nurtured by the flesh of the earth

Show Sebastian in dream their spirituality.

Angela's spirit belongs to gentle clouds.


3

The fruits which round red in branches,

The angel's lips which show her sweetness,

Like nymphs who bend over springs

In restful viewing for long hours,

The green-gold, long hours of the afternoon.

However, sometimes the spirit returns to fight and game.

In golden clouds a battle melee of flies

Surges over putrefaction and abscesses.

A demon ponders thunderstorms in the sultriness,

In the grave's shadow of sad cypresses.

Then the first lightning falls from black flues.


4



The willow-copses' whisper in the evening;

A rain resounds in flute sounds.

Motionless birds hang in the evening!

And here Angela's rest in the dim branches;

The poet is this beauty's priest.

Painful pondering in the dark coolness.

Balmy puddles scent with poppy and incense

By the edge of the forest and gloom's shadow

Angela's joy and the games of the stars

The night embraces the languishing of lovers.

The edge of the forest and gloom's shadow.