A Double Standard.

Do you blame me that I loved him?          If when standing all alone      I cried for bread a careless world          Pressed to my lips a stone.      Do you blame me that I loved him,          That my heart beat glad and free,      When he told me in the sweetest tones          He loved but only me?      Can you blame me that I did not see          Beneath his burning kiss      The serpent's wiles, nor even hear          The deadly adder hiss?      Can you blame me that my heart grew cold          The tempted, tempter turned;      When he was feted and caressed          And I was coldly spurned?      Would you blame him, when you draw from me          Your dainty robes aside,      If he with gilded baits should claim          Your fairest as his bride?      Would you blame the world if it should press          On him a civic crown;      And see me struggling in the depth          Then harshly press me down?      Crime has no sex and yet to-day          I wear the brand of shame;      Whilst he amid the gay and proud          Still bears an honored name.      Can you blame me if I've learned to think          Your hate of vice a sham,      When you so coldly crushed me down          And then excused the man?      Would you blame me if to-morrow          The coroner should say,      A wretched girl, outcast, forlorn,          Has thrown her life away?      Yes, blame me for my downward course,          But oh! remember well,      Within your homes you press the hand          That led me down to hell.      I'm glad God's ways are not our ways          He does not see as man;      Within His love I know there's room          For those whom others ban.      I think before His great white throne,          His throne of spotless light,      That whited sepulchres shall wear          The hue of endless night.      That I who fell, and he who sinned,          Shall reap as we have sown;      That each the burden of his loss          Must bear and bear alone.      No golden weights can turn the scale          Of justice in His sight;      And what is wrong in woman's life          In man's cannot be right.