Day 23 - 30 Poems in 30 Days

Today’s prompt (optional, as always) from NaPoWriMo - Find a poem in a language you don’t know, and translate it into English based on the look of the words and their sounds. – I chose a German (because I don't know German) poem Wandrers Nachtlied by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.  I did find it interesting that when I looked up the English translation it spoke of hills and trees and woods.

Dark Vagrants

Under alien hands
Fast the ruin
Created foreign lands
Pure dung
Beneath our mountain hips
Vulgar strip mines
Stripped vistas bare
Rude in morning light.

Here is the original German version:

Wandrers Nachtlied II
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Über allen Gipfeln  
Ist Ruh,         
In allen Wipfeln       
Spürest du   
Kaum einen Hauch;           
Die Vögelein schweigen in Walde.         
Warte nur, balde     
Ruhest du auch.