Stops of Various Quills/Equality

by William Dean Howells

EQUALITY

HE beautiful dancing-women wove their maze,
With many a swift lascivious leer and lure
For the hot theatre, whose myriad gaze
Burned on their shamelessness with eyes impure.

Then one that watched unseen among them—dread,
Mystical, ineffable of presence—said,
"Patience! And leave me these poor wanton ones:
Soon they shall lie as meek and cold as nuns;
And you that hire them here to tempt your lust
Shall be as all the saints are, in the dust."