Decay

Georg Trakl 1887 (Salzburg) – 1914 (Kraków)



A wind is blowing! The green lights

Sing extinguished - large and satiated

The moon fulfils the high hall,

Where no more celebrations sound through.

The ancestral portraits quietly smile

And far-off - their last shadow fell,

The room is sultry with putrefaction,

Arround which ravens mutely move in circles.

A lost sense of past times

Looks from the stony masks,

Pain distorted and empty of existence

Mourning in abandonments.

Sick smells of sunken gardens

Quietly caress the decay -

Like the echo of sobbing words

Quivering over open crypts.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

27 sec read
141

Quick analysis:

Scheme X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 535
Words 92
Stanzas 16
Stanza Lengths 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1

Georg Trakl

Georg Trakl was an Austrian poet. He is considered one of the most important Austrian Expressionists. more…

All Georg Trakl poems | Georg Trakl Books

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