O my brother we blind clock-hands climb towards midnight.
To One Who Died Young
O, the black angel, who stepped softly from inside the tree,
When we were gentle playmates in the evening,
At the edge of the bluish fountain.
Peaceful was our footfall, eyes round in autumn’s brown coolness,
O, the stars’ crimson sweetness.
But one who descended the stone steps of the Mönchsberg,
A blue smile on his face and strangely cocooned
In his calmer childhood, died;
And in the garden the wind’s silver face remained,
Listening in the leaves, in old stones.
Soul sang of death, green decay of the flesh
And it was the stirring of the forest,
The ardent lament of the deer.
Always from the towers at dusk rang the blue evening bells.
The hour came when he saw shadows in the crimson sun,
In bare branches shadows of corruption;
At evening, when by dusking walls the blackbird sang,
Silently in the room appeared the spirit of one who died young.
O, blood that drains from the throat of the resounding one,
Blue flower; O, the fiery tear
Wept into night.
Golden cloud and time. In a lonely room
You request a visit from the dead one often,
Down the green river beneath elms you stroll in warm conversation.
Spiritual Dusk
(version 2)
Silent, encounters at the forest edge
A dark deer;
Softly dies the evening wind on the hill,
The blackbird’s lament is at peace,
And the gentle flutes of autumn
Silence in the reeds.
On a black cloud
Drunk with poppy you travel
The nocturnal pond,
The starry heavens.
Ever the sister’s lunar voice sounds
Through spiritual night.
Western Song
O the soul’s nocturnal wingbeat:
Shepherds we once passed along dusking woods
And red game followed, green flower and the babbling spring
Filled with humility. O, the ancient sound of the cricket,
Blood blooming on the sacrificial stone
And the solitary bird’s cry over the green stillness of the pond.
O, you crusades and glowing torments
Of the flesh, the fall of crimson fruit
In the evening garden, where in bygone ages the pious disciples walked,
Warriors now, waking from wounds and dreams of stars.
O, the soft cyan cluster of night.
O, you times of stillness and golden autumns,
When we peaceful monks trod the crimson grape;
And all around hill and forest shone.
O you hunts and castles; evening rest,
When in his cell man reflected on the righteous,
In mute prayer wrestled for the living head of God.
O, the bitter hour of downfall,
When we inspect a stony face in black waters.
But in radiance the lovers lift silver lids:
One sex. Incense streams from rosy pillows
And the sweet song of the resurrected.
Transfiguration
When evening appears,
A blue countenance gently deserts you.
A tiny bird trills in the tamarind tree.
A gentle monk
Folds the hands of the dead.
A white angel haunts Mary.
A nocturnal wreath
Of violets, corn and purple grapes
Is the year of the gazing one.
At your feet
The graves of the dead open,
When you rest a brow in silver hands.
Silent dwells
The autumn moon at your mouth,
Dark song drunk with juice of poppy;
Blue flower
That softly sounds in yellowed stones.
Föhn
Blind lament on the wind, lunar winter days,
Childhood, softly steps fade by the black hedge,
Long the evening bells.
Softly the white night comes in,
Turns to crimson dreams the pain and pestilence
Of stony life,
That the thorny barb never relinquishes the rotting body.
Deep the wind in broken trees,
And the lamenting figure
Of the mother sways through the lonely forest
Of this silent grief; nights,
Filled with tears, angels afire.
Silver against a bare wall a childlike skeleton shatters.
The Wayfarer
(version 2)
Ever the white night leans against the hill,
Where in silver sound the poplar looms,
Star and stone can be found.
Sleeping, the path arches over the torrent,
A dead countenance follows the boy,
Crescent moon in rosy ravine
Distant shepherds praising. From old stone
The toad gazes out of crystal eyes,
The blossoming wind awakes, birdcall of the death-like one
And steps green softly in the woods.
These recall tree and beast. Slow steps of moss;
And the moon,
Which glowing sinks into mournful waters.
The other returns once more and strolls to the green shore,
Rocking on black gondolas through the decayed city.
Karl Kraus
White high priest of truth,
Crystal voice, in which God’s icy breath lives,
Raging sorcerer,
Under whose flaming coat jangles the warrior’s blue armour.
To the Silenced
O, the insanity of the great city, where at nightfall
Against black walls the stunted trees stare,
The spirit of evil spies from a silver mask;
Light with magnetic scourge drives out stony night.
O, the sunken tolling of evening bells.
Whore, who in icy shudders bears a dead child.
Raving, God’s wrath lashes the brow of one possessed,
Purple plague, hunger, that breaks green eyes.
O, the horrible laughter of gold.
But in dark caves a mankind more silent bleeds,
From hard metals forms the redeeming head.
Passion
(version 3)
When Orpheus silver stirs the lyre,
Lamenting the dead in the evening garden,
Who are you at rest beneath high trees?
Lament rustles the autumn reeds,
The blue pond,
Dying away beneath greening trees
And following the sister’s shadow;
Dark love
Of a wild race,
From which the day rushes on wheels of gold.
Silent night.
Beneath dark firs
Two wolves married their blood
In stony embrace; a golden form
The cloud vanished over the little bridge,
Patience and silence of childhood.
Encounter again the tender corpse
By the Triton pond
Slumbering in her hyacinthine hair.
That the cool head might shatter at last!
For always a blue deer follows,
An eyeing form beneath dusking trees,
These darker paths
Waking and stirred by nocturnal melodies,
Gentle madness;
Or the string play sounded
Swollen with dark ecstasy
At the cool feet of the penitent woman
In the stony city.
Seven-song of Death
Bluish dusks springtime; under s
ucking trees
A dark shape wanders into evening and decay,
Hearkening to the blackbird’s gentle lament.
Silently night appears, a bloodied deer,
Which slowly sinks down on the hill.
In damp air blooming apple boughs sway,
Serpentine shapes that silvery release,
Dying away from nocturnal eyes; falling stars;
Gentle song of childhood.
Appearing clearer the sleeper descended the black forest,
And a blue spring sighed from the ground,
So that the other slowly lifted pale lids
Over his snowy countenance;
And the moon chased a red beast
From its cavern;
And in sighing died the dark lament of the women.
More radiant he raised his hands towards his star
The white stranger;
Silently a dead form departs the derelict house.
O the putrefied figure of man: cast from cold metals,
Night and horror of sunken forests
And the torrid beast’s wilderness;
Dead calm of the soul.
In a blackish boat the other drifted down shimmering rivers,
Brimming with crimson stars, and peacefully
The verdurous branches sank over him,
Poppy from silver clouds.
Winter Night
Snow has fallen. After midnight drunk on purple wine you depart the dark domain of men, the red flame of their hearth. O darkness!
Black frost. The earth is hard, the air tastes of bitterness. Your stars conspire to form evil signs.
With petrified steps you stamp along the embankment, eyes like discs, those of a soldier storming a dark trench. Avanti!
Bitter the snow and moon!
A red wolf, which an angel is strangling. Your marching legs jangle like blue ice and a smile filled with sorrow and pride has petrified your face and your brow pales in the lust of the frost;
or silently inclines over the sleep of a watchman, who sank down in his wooden hut.
Frost and smoke. A shirt of white stars burns the wearer’s shoulders and God’s vultures tear apart your metal heart.
O the stony hill. Peaceful and forgotten the cool body melts away in silver snow.
Black is sleep. Long the ear follows the path of stars in ice.
On awakening the village bells were ringing. The rosy day stepped silver through the eastern gate.
SONG OF THE DEPARTED
In Venice
Stillness in nocturnal chamber
The candlestick flickers silver
Before the singing breath
Of the lonely one;
Enchanted rose-clouds.
Black fly swarm
Darkens the stone space
And from the agony
Of the golden day stares
The head of the homeless one.
Into night the sea at rest.
Star and blackish voyage
Vanished by the canal.
Child, your sickly smile
Followed me softly into sleep.
Limbo
(version 2)
By autumnal walls, there shadows seek
Ringing gold upon the hill
Evening clouds that graze
In the withered plane trees’ calm.
Darker tears this age exhales,
Damnation, when the dreamer’s heart
Overflows with crimson sunset,
The melancholy of the smoking city;
Golden coolness blows after the walker
The stranger, from the graveyard,
As though a tender corpse followed in the shadows.
Softly chimes the stone building;
The orphans’ garden, the dark hospital,
A red ship on the canal.
Dreaming rise and fall in darkness
Putrefying people rise and sink
And from blackish gates
Angels step with icy brows;
Blueness, the death lament of mothers.
Through their long hair rolls
A fiery wheel, the round day
Earth’s agony without end.
In cool rooms without meaning
Belongings moulder, with bony hands
Unholy childhood
Gropes in the blue for fairy tales,
The fat rat gnaws door and coffer,
A heart
Stiffens in snowy silence.
The crimson curses of hunger resound
In mouldering darkness,
The black swords of lies,
As though a brazen gate slammed shut.
The Sun
Daily the yellow sun comes over the hill.
Beautiful is the forest, the dark beast,
Man; hunter or shepherd.
Reddish rises the fish in the green pond.
Beneath rounded skies
The fisherman moves softly in a blue boat.
Slowly ripens the grape, the corn.
As day closes in stillness,
A good and an evil is prepared.
When night comes,
The wayfarer softly lifts his heavy lids;
Sun breaks from a dark abyss.
Song of a Captive Blackbird
For Ludwig von Ficker
Dark breath in green branches.
Little blue flowers float before the face
Of the solitary, the golden footfall
Dying away beneath the olive tree.
Night flutters up on drunken wing.
So quietly bleeds humility,
Dew, that slowly drips from the blossoming thorn.
The compassion of radiant arms
Enfolds a breaking heart.
Summer
At evening the cuckoo’s lament
Falls silent in the wood.
Deeper bends the corn,
The red poppy.
Black thunderstorm threatens
Over the hill.
The age-old song of the cricket
Fades out in the field.
The leaves of the chestnut
Stir no more.
On the spiral staircase
Your dress rustles.
In stillness the candle shines
In the dark room;
A silver hand
Closes over it;
Still wind, starless night.
Close of Summer
The green summer has fallen so quiet,
Your crystal countenance.
By the evening pond the flowers died,
The blackbird’s startled call.
Futile hope of life. Already the swallow
In the house prepares for the journey
And the sun sinks by the hill;
Already night beckons on its own star journey.
Silence of villages; all around
The deserted woods resound. Heart,
Incline now more lovingly
Over the peaceful sleeping woman.
The green summer has fallen so quiet
And the steps of the stranger ring out
Through the silver night.
Should a blue deer recall its path,
The harmonious sound of its spiritual years!
Year
Dark stillness of childhood. Under greening ash trees
Meekness of a bluish glance grazes; golden peace.
A dark thing delights in the scent of violets; swaying corn
At evening, seed and the golden shadows of melancholy.
The carpenter hews the beam, on shadowy ground
The mill grinds; in the hazel leaves a crimson mouth arches,
Masculine red bowed over silent waters.
Gentle is autumn, spirit of the woods; golden cloud
Follows the lonely one, the black shade of the grandchild.
Dying out in stony room; beneath old cypresses
Nightly images of tears gather in the spring;
Golden
eye of beginning, dark patience of the end.
The West
(version 4)
To Else Lasker-Schüler, in veneration
I
Moon, as though a dead one
Stepped from a blue cavern,
And the blossoms fell in number
Across the rocky path.
Silver weeps a sick one
By the evening pond,
In a black boat
The lovers crossing over met death.
Or the footsteps of Elis
Ring through the grove
The hyacinthine
Dying away again beneath the oaks.
O the figure of that boy
Wrought from crystal tears,
Nocturnal shadows.
Jagged lightning lit up temples
The ever-cool,
When on the greening hill
Springtime storms resound.
II
So quiet are the green forests
Of our homeland,
The crystal wave
Dying against the ruined wall
And we have wept in sleep;