Women — passing and repassing,
Tired women and sad women and smiling women,
Hurrying with heavy bundles,
Their footsteps tap, tap, tap on the stone floor.
Young women with light firm tread,
Painted women with amorous mouths,
Strutting with breasts thrown forward like arrogant pigeons;
Women conscious of their sex and the desire of men's eyes;
Women fresh, buoyant, hopeful, laughing,
Women thinking of the caresses awaiting them as they go to meet their lovers;
Pale, wan women with anxious faces,
Women who drag their legs wearily after the long days' work,
Vacant-eyed, staring women;
Women with bright crackling gowns and spreading hips;
Old women with wrinkled cheeks and hollow bosoms;
Women with dishevelled hair and pendulous abdomens;
Women who walk aimlessly seeming not to know where they are going;
Startled women, prim women, and vain, beautiful self-satisfied women;
Lank women and soft women, flushed and dimpled;
Sallow women and stout women breathing heavily —
Women hurrying, hurrying,
Their footsteps like the tap, tap of water from a tankard.

These are the women men have worshipped,
These are the women who suffer that a little child may grow!