| Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). Poetry: A Magazine of Verse. 1912–22. | | | | Night | | By Wilhelm Klemm |
| | From “Modern German Poems”
Translated by Babette Deutsch and Avrahm Yarmolinsky
THE RIVER mutters to itself in the darkness | |
| Like an actor rehearsing his role by night. | |
| At intervals one hears Time’s eyelashes flutter. | |
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| People are sleeping—some upon pillows, some upon white cliffs. | |
| Some of them have immense terrible thumbs. | 5 |
| Women toss their long hair across their faces. | |
| |
| Meanwhile grey castles slowly fall to ruin; | |
| Thin black grasses arise; | |
| Mountains uplift their white antlers. | |
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| Lord, give me a sign that you still live! | 10 |
| I begin to freeze and to be afraid. | |
| It is already midnight. Hark! | |
| |
| The minster begins to sing in his brazen voice: | |
| An old sentinel full of strength and troth, | |
| Who, chanting, cries the hour and then is still. | 15 |
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| Then night sinks deeper into dreamless dark. | |
| Only the river rehearses its spectral role: | |
| To be or not to be … | | | | |
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