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.