Poems (Harper, 1898)/A Double Standard
A Double Standard.
Do you blame me that I loved him? If when standing all aloneI 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.