The Doom Of The Esquire Bedell.

Adown the torturing mile of street
    I mark him come and go,
Thread in and out with tireless feet
    The crossings to and fro;
A soul that treads without retreat
    A labyrinth of woe.

Palsied with awe of such despair,
    All living things give room,
They flit before his sightless glare
    As horrid shapes, that loom
And shriek the curse that bids him bear
    The symbol of his doom.

The very stones are coals that bake
    And scorch his fevered skin;
A fire no hissing hail may slake
    Consumes his heart within.
Still must he hasten on to rake
    The furnace of his sin.

Still forward! forward!    For he feels
    Fierce claws that pluck his breast,
And blindly beckon as he reels
    Upon his awful quest:
For there is that behind his heels
    Knows neither ruth nor rest.

The fiends in hell have flung the dice;
    The destinies depend
On feet that run for fearful price,
    And fangs that gape to rend;
And still the footsteps of his Vice
    Pursue him to the end:--
The feet of his incarnate Vice
    Shall dog him to the end.