V.
WHEN simple maid or stately matron, Dowsabel or Dame,
Queen gold and ermine wrapped or but a sluttish kitchen quean,
Doth step from virtue s pedestal into the slough of shame,
Filling the hearts that loved her with hot rage or anguish keen,
There mingles never in that grief the sad strange element
Of disbelief and doubt and wild incredulous surprise,
’Tis only as if in a storm a lily sidewise bent,
Not that a radiant angel s grace hath fallen from the skies;
A woman hath one way to sin, one only and no more,
A fragile creature mothlike made for pleasure and for love,
She dares not waste upon the rocks, the bleak and barren shore,
Her little gilded sunlit hour, but reckless soars above
To flutter for a moment where the fire-red poppies flaunt,
Where soon the filmy wings are scorched, the tiny feet are seared,
The sunshine fades, the garden fills with grisly shapes and gaunt,
And punishment looms darklier than ignorance hath feared,
Poor broken butterfly! our hearts have ached full many a time
To see thy gauzy pinions crushed or fury-fouled with slime,
But never to a woman s fall is paid the praise that lies
The compliment, the tribute high in honest shocked surprise.
