A Double Standard

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.