Some Crime

Once upon a midnight dreary
While I pondered weak and weary
There came a knock-knock-knocking on my door.
I opened it to behold - a whore.

Coughing, hacking, hacking, coughing,
Inside me died the need for scoffing 
At the oldest profession in the world.
Instead arose a pity in my breast as she hurled.

Sick to dying, she begged my mercy,
Smelling of sweet death and kind of horsey,
And stared into my soul from deep set eyes.
I let her in, much to my loved ones' surprise.

They tried to tell me that I had done wrong,
But where is the sin in giving to the weak when we are strong?
I let her stay with no hesitancy
For she was too far along in her pregnancy
For me to feel well sending her on her way.
I feared the child would not see a day.

A week passed and the baby came.
The woman died and nothing has been the same.
Now a sweet young child plays in my garden
And for sheltering a tired mother I have been pardened,
Though if I commited some crime I will never know.
Is it not strange what we think must be so?