Twilight

In early evening my cell flares up.

Thin shadows slide down the gray walls.

He who cries out in mutiny exhausts into a dream.

The brown stillness sweeps over like a gentle wave.

And often a frosted light fills the choked room.

Figures beckon you to the spiritless circle

where the dance of the heavy coats dissolves into silence.

Dawn breaks into a ringing of bells.

And suddenly, like light in darkness, the real truth broke in upon me; the simple fact of Man, which I had forgotten, which had lain deep buried and out of sight; the idea of community, of unity.

Ernst Toller