Beyond my sight, lay a road
A road I had never travelled
And knew not where it led
Thither I bent my steps
No reflection was to be allowed
Not one glance was to be cast back
Not even one forward
Not one thought was to be given
Either to the past or the future
The first was a prelude
So heavenly sweet, so deadly sad
That to recall one note of it
Would dissolve my courage
And break down my determination
The last was an awful blank
Something like the world
when the deluge was gone by
But on the pass to guillotine
I looked neither to dawning cloud
Nor rising sun, nor wakening nature
I thought not of the flowers
Smiling on the road
But of the block and axe-edge
Of the disseverment of bone and vein
Of the grave gaping at the end
I thought of drear depart
And homeless wandering
With agony I thought of
What I left behind me
How I would turn back to say
I would stay, be what I longed to be
I panted to return
Before it was too late...
Still I could not turn, nor retrace
Not even one step
God must have led me on
As to my own will and endurance
Impassioned grief had trampled one
And stifled the other
Weeping wildly as I roamed over
My solitary way: fast, and fast
I went like one delirious
