Ah, you’d know the time;
Most prisoners get confused.
CARLOMAN.
No night nor day;
God promised them forever—morn and eve,
The gathering of the shadows, the decline,
The darkness with no footfall: then the day
And all things reappearing. That’s for all—
Most for the prisoners, if you’d have them gentle.
Throw down this shutter!
WARDER.
[shaking his head] That is just the point—
In prison you get thwarted every way;
You won’t ask that to-morrow.
[He rises, shakes the crumbs from his lap, sets the half-empty wine-bottle on a ledge within Carloman’s reach and goes out.]
CARLOMAN.
Is he gone?
[Carloman drags himself up and props himself by the wall with his ear against it.]
I hear the river rushing past the walls,
Rushing and rushing, and through all my dreams
I labour to keep pace with it: awake,
I give myself to rest. It comforts me,
To hear the bounding current pass along,
To think of the far travel of the drops,
Crisping the tiny waves. Away, away!
It is great peace to follow: to pursue
Is misery.
And if I kneel down here,
I can just catch the glitter of the sun
A-tumble down the stream....