They did not intend to distinguish between the essence
    Of wit and wallpaper trellis. What they cared
    Was how the appointments of the age appeared
    Under the citron gaslight incandescence.


    Virtue was vulgar, sin a floral passion
    And death a hansom at the door, while they
    Kept faith with a pomaded sense of history
    In their fashion.


    Behind the domino, those fringed and fanned
    Exclusive girls, prinked with the peacock's eye
    Noted, they believed, the trickle of a century
    Like a thin umbrella in a black-gloved hand.