Women must weep :: :: University of Virginia Library

O say, has she lost a queenly crown,
Or a sceptre fair to see,
That the tongue of the slanderer cries her down,
And her friends in her peril flee?
That the refuse of Town,
In the silken gown,
Or the knave that hugs the harlot's knee,
And the creature that takes the pander's fee,
With their virtuous frown
Should unite to drown,
When the breakers are on the lee,
A poor woman once fair like thee?

O say, has she lost the fortune lent
To the wealthiest but a time,
That her beautiful brow is lowly bent,
And her footsteps do not chime,
As she lately went,
Not despoiled and spent,
Like a messenger from a sunny clime?
For we know to be poor is a grievous crime,
Not the unpaid rent,
Nor the vile intent,
Nor the sin from its fetid slime,
In its evil success sublime.

O say, has she lost that blessed power,
Which is armour for every fray,
Which to tumbling hut and the soaring tower,
Is yet all of their earthly stay?
Like an exiled flower
From enchanted bower,
Is she sickly treading the twilight way,
That must end in the silence cold and gray,
And the awful hour
That will each one lower,
When to darkness turns the day,
And the golden head to clay?

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She has lost what is better than a throne,
And more bright than the bridal bloom,
Which is purer even than Parian stone
That adorns a monarch's room,
Or the diamond cone—
In the loosened zone;
She is left to the worm and fiery doom,
And the prayers that as ghostly shadows loom,
That may not atone—
She is left alone,
With her haunted heart of gloom,
Which is house alike and tomb.