Georg Trakl

3 February 1887 - 3 November 1914 / Salzburg

Gipsy

The longing flames in their nightly glance
Toward that homeland they never find.
So they drift in an unfortunate fate,
That only melancholy may fathom completely.

The clouds lead their ways,
A migration of birds may sometimes escort them,
Until it loses their track in the evening,
And the wind sometimes carries an Ave of bells

In their camp's star-loneliness,
So that their songs swell more longing
And sob from inherited curse and suffering,
That no stars of hope softly illuminate.
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