Rhymes And Rhythms - VII

There's a regret     So grinding, so immitigably sad,     Remorse thereby feels tolerant, even glad. . . .     Do you not know it yet?     For deeds undone     Rankle, and snarl, and hunger for their due     Till there seems naught so despicable as you     In all the grin o' the sun.     Like an old shoe     The sea spurns and the land abhors, you lie     About the beach of Time, till by-and-by     Death, that derides you too,     Death, as he goes     His ragman's round, espies you, where you stray,     With half-an-eye, and kicks you out of his way;     And then--and then, who knows     But the kind Grave     Turns on you, and you feel the convict Worm,     In that black bridewell working out his term,     Hanker and grope and crave?     'Poor fool that might,     That might, yet would not, dared not, let this be,     Think of it, here and thus made over to me     In the implacable night!'     And writhing, fain     And like a lover, he his fill shall take     Where no triumphant memory lives to make     His obscene victory vain.