Wan mirrors freeze an unremitting grin....

And women with spent loins and sleeping croups

Are piled on sofas and arm-chairs in groups,

With sodden flesh grown vague, and black and blue

With the first trampling of the evening’s crew.

One of them slides a gold coin in her stocking;

Another yawns, and some their knees are rocking;

Others by bacchanalia worn out,

Feeling old age, and, sniffing them, Death’s snout,

Stare with wide-open eyes, torches extinct,