In The Sante

I Before I got into my cell I had to strip my body bare I heard an ominous voice say Well Guillaume what are you doing here Lazarus steps into the ground Not out of it as he was bid Adieu Adieu O singing round Of years and girls the life I led II I'm no longer myself in here I know I'm number fifteen in the eleventh Row The sunlight filters downward through The panes And on these lines bright clowns alight Like stains They dance under my eyes while my Ears follow The feet of one whose feet above Sound hollow III In a bear-pit like a bear Every morning round I tramp Round and round and round and round The sky is like an iron clamp In a bear-pit like a bear Every morning round I tramp In the next cell at the sink Someone lets the water run With his bunch of keys that clink Let the goaler go and come In the next cell at the sink Someone lets the water run IV How bored I am between bare wall and wall Whose colour pales and pines A fly on the paper with extremely small Steps runs across these lines What will become of me O God Who know My pain Who gave it me Have pity on my dry eyes and my pallor My chair which creaks and is not free And all these poor hearts beating in this prison And Love beside me seated Pity above all my unstable reason And this despair which threatens to defeat it V How long these hours take to go As long as a whole funeral You'll mourn the time you mourned you know It will be gone too soon like all Time past too fast too long ago VI I hear the noises of the city In the turning world beyond me I see a sky which has no pity And bare prison walls around me The daylight disappears and now A lamp is lit within the prison We're all alone here in my cell Beautiful light Beloved reason