To the dumbstruck

 

O, the madness of the great city, where at evening

Beside the black wall crippled trees gawk,

From a silver mask the evil spirit peers;

Light with magnetic scourge the stony night ousts.

O, the sunken toll of evening bells.

 

Whore, who in icy shivers gives birth to a dead infant.

Raging God’s wrath whips the brow of the possessed,

Purple sickness, hunger, that shatters green eyes.

O, the atrocious laughter of gold.

 

But still bleeds in darkling cave silenter humankind,

Joins out of hard metals the saving head.

 

Georg Trakl