MUSIC IN THE MIRABELL

by Georg Trakl

A Fountain sings. The Clouds stand
In the clear Blue looking tender.
Deliberately silent People go
In the Evening by the old Garden. 

The Ancestral Marble is gray.
A train of birds clips in the far Wide 
A Faun with dead Eyes looks
Toward Shadows in their Dark slide.

The Leaves fall red from the old Tree
And circle in through the open Window.
A Firelight glows in the Room 
And paints trumpeted Fear-of-phantoms.

A foreign Stranger enters the House.
A Dog rushes by a dilapidated swing.
The Maid snuffs a Lamp out
The Ear hears night's Sonatasounds. 

GEORG TRAKL

1887 - 1914

The original poem

is engraved in German

upon a plaque in Mirabell
Garden, Salzburg Austria

(translation courtesy

of Shaun Lawton

SLC Nov 2014)