VAIN VIRTUES

What is the sorriest thing that enters Hell?

None of the sins,— but this and that fair deed

Which a soul's sin at length could supersede.

These yet are virgins, whom death's timely knell

Might once have sainted; whom the fiends compel

Together now, in snake-bound shuddering sheaves

Of anguish, while the scorching bridegroom leaves

Their refuse maidenhood abominable.

Night sucks them down, the garbage of the pit,

Whose names, half entered in the book of Life,

Were God's desire at noon. And as their hair

And eyes sink last, the Torturer deigns no whit

To gaze, but, yearning, waits his worthier wife,

The Sin still blithe on earth that sent them there.