Retrospective

Green and red resonating before the window.
In the smoke-blackened, low hall
The farm boys and maids sit with the meal;
And they pour wine and they break bread.

In the deep silence of midday
Sometimes a meager word is spoken.
The fields glimmer constantly
And the sky leaden and wide.

Grotesquely the embers flicker in the hearth
And a swarm of flies buzzes.
The maids listen dim-witted and mute
And blood pounds in their temples.

And sometimes lust-filled glances meet
When animal smells waft through the room.
Monotonously a farm boy says the prayer
And a cock crows under the door.

And again into the field. A horror seizes
Them often in the roaring bluster of corn
And the scythes swing back and forth
Clanking in a ghostly rhythm.