Oh, beloved, and there is nothing but shadows
where you accompany me in your dreams
and tell me the hour of light.

By night, beloved, tie your heart to mine
and let them both in dreams defeat the darkness

I was born anew, owner of my own darkness.

No one will retrieve my lost heart
amidst so many roots, in the bitter freshness
of the sun multiplied by the fury of the water,
there the shadow lives that does not travel with me.

By night, Love, tie your heart to mine, and the two
together in their sleep will defeat the darkness

There was nothing the matter out there. It was in here, with me.

I decided I'd better go to work, maybe that would exorcise me. I fled from the room almost as though it were haunted. It was too late to stop off at a breakfast counter now. I didn't want any, anyway. My stomach kept giving little quivers. In the end I didn't go to work, either. I couldn't, I wouldn't have been any good. I telephoned in that I was too ill to come, and it was no idle excuse, even though I was upright on my two legs.

I roamed around the rest of the day in the sunshine. Wherever the sunshine was the brightest, I sought and stayed in that place, and when it moved on I moved with it. I couldn't get it bright enough or strong enough. I avoided the shade, I edged away from it, even the slight shade of an awning or of a tree.

And yet the sunshine didn't warm me. Where others mopped their brows and moved out of it, I stayed - and remained cold inside. And the shade was winning the battle as the hours lengthened. It outlasted the sun. The sun weakened and died; the shade deepened and spread. Night was coming on, the time of dreams, the enemy. ("Nightmare")