Flowers

When a flower is exposed
To the chill night air and dies,
Is this the flower’s fault?
“Of course not,” is the quick reply;
It could not help itself,
And so it had to wilt and die.
But when a woman, like a flower,
In the path of harm is thrown,
And to its evil strength succumbs,
All the world looks down on her;
While another who was not tempted
Gets praise for virtuousness,
When she was but the flower
That had been kept inside.
Oh, let us pity—aid, if we can—
The flowers of human kind
Who, like the flowers of the field,
Are too weak to weather through
The evils that encompass them.