Decay (poem)

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Decay is one of the most famous poems by the expressionist poet Georg Trakl . It was written in 1913 and deals with the feelings of a lyrical self , namely wanderlust and melancholy , which this portrays during an autumn evening.

text

“In the evening, when the bells ring peace,
I follow the wonderful flights of the birds,
The long gathered, like pious pilgrimages,
disappear into the clear autumnal expanse.

Wandering through the dim garden,
I dream of their brighter destinies
And hardly feel the hours of wise men moving.
So I follow their journeys above clouds.

A breath of decay makes me tremble.
The blackbird complains in the defoliated branches.
The red wine sways on rusty bars,

Meanwhile, like pale children, dying rounds of
dark fountains that are weathered,
blue asters shivering in the wind. "

shape

It is a poem in the classical sonnet form , it consists of two quartets and two terzets , with an embracing rhyme in the quartets and a cross rhyme in the terzets. The external structure goes hand in hand with the content of the poem, because the two quartets and the two terzets each form a section of meaning.

content

The quartets

In the first quartet, the lyrical self describes a rather peaceful evening mood, which is accompanied by ringing bells. From the second verse, the lyrical ego wishes to fly away with the birds; it is characterized by a longing to fly south with them and escape the autumnal dreariness.

In the second quartet, the lyrical self sees itself in a "dim garden"; the very word dimly suggests a dark mood to come. In contrast, it names the action of the birds, namely the flight from the gloom into the brightness and warmth, as “brighter fate”. His sensory impressions and longings themselves are a dream for the lyrical self. In addition, the lyrical self is so immersed in its dream world that time has become irrelevant and it no longer has any sense of time (“feel the hours of wise men hardly move”) and dreams of flying away with the birds.

The trios

At the beginning of the first trio, the lyrical self is brought back into the real world, which is described as decaying and doomed, by the word “Da” in the sense of “Suddenly”.

Web links

Wikisource: Expiration  - Sources and Full Texts