“I am not the light, I am the night; but a flame stabs through my entrails and consumes me. I am the night devoured by light.”

“It beckons, I follow.
Good-by to the light,
I am going, O whither?
Out into the night.”

“The pictures, with their ruddy light,
Are changed to dust and ashes white,
And I am left alone with night.”

“Now I see that I will never find the light
Unless, like the candle, I am my own fuel,
Consuming myself.”

“My Soul gave me good counsel, teaching me that the lamp which I carry does not belong to me, and the song that I sing was not generated from within me. Even if I walk with light, I am not the light; and if I am a taut-stringed lute, I am not the lute player.”

“I am my enemy
Mowing me over,
And towing the light away.”

“The night had passed completely. The morning star shone in the sky. I too had become a different person. The student of Talmud, the child I was, had been consumed by the flames. All that was left was a shape that resembled me. My soul had been invaded - and devoured - by a black flame.”

“I am not my own light unto myself.”

“Lead, Kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom,
Lead Thou me on!
The night is dark, and I am far from home—
Lead Thou me on!
Keep Thou my feet: I do not ask to see
The distant scene,—one step enough for me.”

“My mother bore me in the southern wild,
And I am black, but O! my soul is white;
White as an angel is the English child,
But I am black as if bereaved of light.”