Psalm
Georg Trakl 1887 (Salzburg) – 1914 (Kraków)
Stillness; as if blind people sank down by autumnal wall,
Listening with rotten temples to the flight of the ravens;
Golden stillness of autumn, the countenance of the father in the flickering sun
At evening the old village decays in the peace of brown oaks,
The red hammering of the smithy, a pounding heart.
Stillness; in slow hands the maid hides the hyacinthine forehead
Under fluttering sunflowers. Fear and silence
Of extinguishing eyes fulfills the dusking room, the halting steps
Of old women, the escape of the purple mouth which slowly expires in the darkness.
Taciturn evening in vine. From the low rafters
A nocturnal moth fell, nymph buried into bluish sleep.
In the courtyard the farm boy slaughters a lamb, the sweet smell of the blood
Clouds our foreheads, the dark coolness of the fountain.
The gloom of dying asters regrets, golden voices in the wind.
When it becomes night you look at me from moldered eyes,
In blue stillness your cheeks decayed to dust.
So quietly a weed's fire expires, the black hamlet in the ground falls silent
As if the cross climbed down the blue hill of Calvary,
The silent earth ejected its dead.
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:00 min read
- 104 Views
Quick analysis:
Scheme | X X A X X B X X X X X X A X X X X X B |
---|---|
Closest metre | Iambic heptameter |
Characters | 1,131 |
Words | 199 |
Stanzas | 19 |
Stanza Lengths | 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1 |
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"Psalm" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 18 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/14758/psalm>.
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