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
That 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
When you so coldly crushed me down
And then excused the man?

Would you blame me if tomorrow
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