The Blighted One

Social observation of the exploitation of the less fortunate by the upper classes was a favourite theme for William Robertson. In the following poem his scorn is not for the "fallen woman" but rather the man who has abused his power and position to seduce her. He is not interested in moralising against her but rather him and sees her justice being delivered in the next world by God against the man who has seduced her.

This was a fairly unusual position to hold at the time as there was little charitable effort directed towards "fallen women" who were unable to secure any social standing or acceptance as they had lost their reputation for being "respectable". Once having lost respectability a woman was not considered "redeemable". As a result they were often forced to work as prostitutes to earn a living - thus confirming society's suspicions of their lack of respectability and sentencing them to a life of poverty and additional children born out of wedlock.


The Blighted One

See yonder comes a sorry sight,
And sad it is to know
The fate of that poor stricken one-
Her's is a tale of woe.

Now of her youth, once warm and bright,
There is not left one trace,
When purity and innocence
Shone through her ev'ry grace.

No semblance of the peerless charms
The village minstrel sung
Remains to tell what she was once-
The beautiful and young.

Of wrongs and years of with'ring grief
To speak were idle now,
The sufferings of the sufferer
Are written on her brow.

There's one that lives in lordly state,
The flattered, the caressed;
His victim is that blighted one-
The loathed, the distressed.

Foul rags and vile unseemly weeds,
Poor wanderer forlorn,
But serve to point you out the more
To cold unpitying scorn;

Whilst still with wealth and power begirt
The spoiler hides his shame
Amid his servile worshippers,
Where non may dare to blame.

Though thou art crushed, and he still laughs
'Mid ribald jests and songs,
Kind heaven, just an merciful,
Shall yet avenge your wrongs.

An hour will come- 'tis on the wing-
When wealth will may not avail,
For scourged beneath the eye of God
The villain's heart shall quail.