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.