Zu Abend mein Herz
[This page by Richard Millington]
Zu Abend mein Herz
Am Abend hört man den Schrei der Fledermäuse,
Zwei Rappen springen auf der Wiese,
Der rote Ahorn rauscht.
Dem Wanderer erscheint die kleine Schenke am Weg.
Herrlich schmecken junger Wein und Nüsse,
Herrlich: betrunken zu taumeln in dämmernden Wald.
Durch schwarzes Geäst tönen schmerzliche Glocken,
Auf das Gesicht tropft Tau.
Towards Evening My Heart
In the evening you hear the scream of bats,
Two black horses jump in the meadow,
The red maple rustles.
To the traveller the small inn appears by the path.
Wonderful the taste of young wine and nuts,
Wonderful: stumbling drunk into darkening wood.
Through black branches painful bells sound,
On the face dew drips.
Source: http://gutenberg.spiegel.de/buch/5445/37
This poem was written in late 1912 and was included in Trakl’s first published collection Gedichte of 1913. Upon its first publication, critic Michael G. Lap described it as “impressionism of the most extreme kind, bordering on Futurist nonsense that clearly intoxicates Trakl more than anyone, because in one line he tellingly claims that it is ‘wonderful’ to ‘stumble drunk into darkening wood’.” For a more recent and sympathetic reading of “Zu Abend mein Herz”, see the article listed below.
Further Reading
Richard Millington, “‘Klänge, weich und trunken’: Georg Trakl’s Poetics of Intoxication”, AUMLA 107 (May 2007), 77–102