Here you will find the Poem The Doom Of The Esquire Bedell of poet Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch
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.
