There's A Regret

There's a regret

So grinding, so immitigably sad,

Remorse thereby feels tolerant, even glad.…

Do you not know it yet?

For deeds undone

Rnakle 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 triumphing lover, he shall take,

His fill where no high memory lives to make

His obscene victory vain.