{
 "id": "frances-ellen-watkins-harper/a-double-standard",
 "title": "A Double Standard",
 "poet": "Frances Ellen Watkins Harper",
 "poet_slug": "frances-ellen-watkins-harper",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Atlanta Offering: Poems",
 "book_slug": "atlanta-offering",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 6,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1895,
  "venue": "Atlanta Offering: Poems (1895)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/69248"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/frances-ellen-watkins-harper_poetry",
  "file": "poetry.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
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   "https://archive.org/details/poemsonmiscellan00harp",
   "https://scalar.lehigh.edu/african-american-poetry-a-digital-anthology/frances-ew-harper-poems-1871",
   "https://archive.org/details/poems01harp",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/69249",
   "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/007491600",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/69248",
   "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/100774124",
   "https://scalar.lehigh.edu/african-american-poetry-a-digital-anthology/frances-ew-harper-poems-full-text-1895",
   "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/100488369",
   "https://scalar.lehigh.edu/african-american-poetry-a-digital-anthology/frances-ew-harper-idylls-of-the-bible-1901",
   "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/100319488",
   "https://archive.org/details/historyofafrican00payn",
   "https://archive.org/details/WeeklyAngloAfricanI",
   "https://archive.org/details/sim_liberator_1858-05-14_28_20",
   "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/000500702",
   "https://archive.org/details/undergroundrailr00stil",
   "https://archive.org/details/frances-ellen-watkins-harper_sketches-of-southern-life-1872",
   "https://archive.org/details/25th-annual-report-of-the-board-of-managers-of-the-home-etc",
   "https://archive.org/details/frances-ellen-watkins-harper_light-beyond-the-darkness",
   "https://archive.org/details/ame-church-review-1900-04"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-12"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 56,
  "n_stanzas": 14,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 44,
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 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Do you blame me that I loved him?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "If when standing all alone",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "I cried for bread a careless world",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Pressed to my lips a stone.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Do you blame me that I loved him,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That my heart beat glad and free,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "When he told me in the sweetest tones",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He loved but only me?",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Can you blame me that I did not see",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Beneath his burning kiss",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The serpent’s wiles, nor even hear",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The deadly adder hiss?",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Can you blame me that my heart grew cold",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That the tempted, tempter turned;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "When he was fêted and caressed",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And I was coldly spurned?",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Would you blame him, when you draw from me",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Your dainty robes aside,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "If he with gilded baits should claim",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Your fairest as his bride?",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Would you blame the world if it should press",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "On him a civic crown;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And see me struggling in the depth",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Then harshly press me down?",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Crime has no sex and yet to-day",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I wear the brand of shame;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Whilst he amid the gay and proud",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Still bears an honored name.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Can you blame me if I’ve learned to think",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Your hate of vice a sham,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "When you so coldly crushed me down",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And then excused the man?",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Would you blame me if to-morrow",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The coroner should say,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "A wretched girl, outcast, forlorn,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Has thrown her life away?",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Yes, blame me for my downward course,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But oh! remember well,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Within your homes you press the hand",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That led me down to hell.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I’m glad God’s ways are not our ways,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He does not see as man;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Within His love I know there’s room",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For those whom others ban.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I think before His great white throne,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "His throne of spotless light,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "That whited sepulchres shall wear",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The hue of endless night.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "That I who fell, and he who sinned,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Shall reap as we have sown;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "That each the burden of his loss",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Must bear and bear alone.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "No golden weights can turn the scale",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of justice in His sight;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And what is wrong in woman’s life",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In man’s cannot be right.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ]
 ]
}