“Because,—­because their pilfering had got head. 
  What wouldst thou more?  The neighbors pleaded hard,
’Tis true, and many tears the creature shed;
  But I had vowed their prayers to disregard,
Heavily strike the first that robbed my land,
And put down thieving with a steady hand.

“She said she was not guilty.  Ay, ’tis true
  She said so, but the poor are liars all. 
O thou fell Fiend, what wilt thou?  Must I view
  Thy darkness yet, and must thy shadow fall
Upon me miserable?  I have done
No worse, no more than many a scathless one.”

“Yet,” quoth the Shade, “if ever to thine ears
  The knowledge of her blamelessness was brought,
Or others have confessed with dying tears
  The crime she suffered for, and thou hast wrought
All reparation in thy power, and told
Into her empty hand thy brightest gold:—­

“If thou hast honored her, and hast proclaimed
  Her innocence and thy deplored wrong,
Still thou art nought; for thou shalt yet be blamed
  In that she, feeble, came before thee strong,
And thou, in cruel haste to deal a blow,
Because thou hadst been angered, worked her woe.

“But didst thou right her?  Speak!” The Justice sighed,
  And beaded drops stood out upon his brow;
“How could I humble me,” forlorn he cried,
  “To a base beggar?  Nay, I will avow
That I did ill.  I will reveal the whole;
I kept that knowledge in my secret soul.”

“Hear him!” the Phantom muttered; “hear this man,
  O changeless God upon the judgment throne.” 
With that, cold tremors through his pulses ran,
  And lamentably he did make his moan;
While, with its arms upraised above his head,
The dim dread visitor approached his bed.

“Into these doors,” it said, “which thou hast closed,
  Daily this woman shall from henceforth come;
Her kneeling form shall yet be interposed
  Till all thy wretched hours have told their sum;
Shall yet be interposed by day, by night,
Between thee, sinner, and the warmth and light.

“Remembrance of her want shall make thy meal
  Like ashes, and thy wrong thou shalt not right. 
But what!  Nay, verily, nor wealth nor weal
  From henceforth shall afford thy soul delight. 
Till men shall lay thy head beneath the sod,
There shall be no deliverance, saith my God.”

“Tell me thy name,” the dreaming Justice cried;
  “By what appointment dost thou doom me thus?”
“’Tis well that thou shouldst know me,” it replied,
  “For mine thou art, and nought shall sever us;
From thine own lips and life I draw my force: 
The name thy nation give me is REMORSE.”

This when he heard, the dreaming man cried out,
  And woke affrighted; and a crimson glow
The dying ember shed.  Within, without,
  In eddying rings the silence seemed to flow;
The wind had lulled, and on his forehead shone
The last low gleam; he was indeed alone.