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For I am a sinful woman, well I know,
And though by others’ sins my own are not excused
Things seem so strange to me in this strange world of woe,
In a maze of doubt and wonder I get confused;
Whether a sin of impulse, born of a fatal love,
Is worse than deliberate bargain, a life of legal shame,
Legal below, I think in the courts above
The heavenly scribes will call a crime by its right name.

But we stand before the wise, wise judgment-seat
Of the world, and it calls you pure,
That in your pearl-gemmed breast all saintly virtues meet,
Holier than other holy women, higher, truer,
So sweet a creature an angel in woman’s guise.
They would not wonder much, though much they might admire,
Should you be caught again up to your native skies
From an alien world in a chariot of fire.

So we stand before the tender judgment-seat
Of the world, and it calls me vile,
So low that it is a wonder God will let
His joyous sunshine gild my guilty head with its smiles,
An outcast barred beyond the pale of hope,
Beyond the lamp of their mercy’s flickering light,
They would scarcely wonder if the earth should ope
And swallow up the wretch from their vexed sight.

Before another judgment-seat one day we will stand
You and I, my lady, and he by our side,
He who won my heart, who held my life in his hand,
He who bought you with gold to be his bride;
Before an assembled world we shall stand, we three,
To meet from the merciful Judge our doom of weal or woe,
He holds His righteous balance true and evenly,
And which is the vilest sinner we then shall know.