He could not plunge into the daylight that streamed at the window.
It was asking too much of his nature.
Worse even than the hideous terror of me with my handkerchief
Saying: Out, go out!...
Was the horror of white daylight in the window!
So I switched on the electric light, thinking: Now
The outside will seem brown....
But no.
The outside did not seem brown.
And he did not mind the yellow electric light.
Silent!
He was having a silent rest.
But never!
Not in my room.
Round and round and round
Near the ceiling as if in a web,
Staggering;
Plunging, falling out of the web,
Broken in heaviness,
Lunging blindly,
Heavier;
And clutching, clutching for one second’s pause,
Always, as if for one drop of rest,
One little drop.
And I!
Never, I say....
Go out!
Flying slower,
Seeming to stumble, to fall in air.
Blind-weary.
Yet never able to pass the whiteness of light into freedom ...
A bird would have dashed through, come what might.
Fall, sink, lurch, and round and round
Flicker, flicker-heavy;
Even wings heavy:
And cleave in a high corner for a second, like a clot, also a prayer.