Collected Poems

A WINTER NIGHT

In a hazel thicket Angels of crystal rang out once more. THE RATS (from the German of Georg Trakl) In the farmyard the white moon of autumn shines. Fantastic shadows fall from the eaves of the roof. A silence is living in the empty windows; Now from it the rats emerge softly And skitter here and there, squeaking. And a gray malodorous mist from the latrine Follows behind them, sniffing: Through the mist the ghostly moonlight quivers. And the rats squeak eagerly as if insane And go out to fill houses and barns Which are filled full of fruit and grain. Icy \vinds quarrel in the darkness. A WINTER NIGHT (from the German of Georg Trakl) It has been snowing. Past midnight, drunk on purple wine, you leave the gloomy shelters of men, and the red fire of their fireplaces. Oh the darkness of night. Black frost. The ground is hard, the air has a bitter taste. Your stars make unlucky figures. With a stiff walk, you tramp along the railroad embankment with huge eyes, like a soldier charging a dark machinegun nest. Onward! Bitter snow and moon. A red wolf, that an angel is strangling. Your trouser legs rustle, as you walk, like blue ice, and a smile full of suffering and pride pertrifies your face, SOME TRANSLATIONS 99 and your forehead is white before the ripe desire of the frost; or else it bends down silently over the doze of the nightwatchman, slumped down in his wooden shack. Frost and smoke. A white shirt of stars burns on your clothed shoulders, and the hawk of God strips flesh out of your hard heart. Oh the stony hill. The cool body, forgotten and silent, is melting away in the silver snow. Sleep is black. For a long time the ear follows the motion of the stars deep down in the ice. When you woke, the churchbells were ringing in the town. Out of the door in the east the rose-colored day walked with silver light. SLEEP (from the German of Georg Iraki) Not your dark poisons again, White sleep! This fantastically strange garden Of trees in deepening twilight Fills up with serpents, nightmoths, Spiders, bats. Approaching the stranger! Your abandoned shadow In the red of evening Is a dark pirate ship On the salty oceans of confusion. White birds from the outskirts of the night Flutter out over the shuddering cities Of steel. I AM FREED (from the Spanish of Ce'sar Vallejo) I am freed from the burdens of the sea 100 ...