What is the sorriest thing that enters Hell? <br />None of the sins,—but this and that fair deed <br />Which a soul's sin at length could supersede. <br />These yet are virgins, whom death's timely knell <br />Might once have sainted; whom the fiends compel <br />Together now, in snake-bound shuddering sheaves <br />Of anguish, while the pit's pollution leaves <br />Their refuse maidenhood abominable. <br />Night sucks them down, the tribute of the pit, <br />Whose names, half entered in the book of Life, <br />Were God's desire at noon. And as their hair <br />And eyes sink last, the Torturer deigns no whit <br />To gaze, but, yearning, waits his destined wife, <br />The Sin still blithe on earth that sent them there.<br /><br />Dante Gabriel Rossetti<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/sonnet-lxxxv-vain-virtues/
