The Woman With The Ordinary Past Poem by George Ade

I
The folks in Section A
Who watch a problem play
Of the kind C. F. imports for Ethel Barrymore
Will pity quite a lot
Poor Sadie in the plot
Who has such a load of grief she couldn't carry more.
At present she is most discreet
She's pale and wan and sad and sweet;
But once she went a trifle fast —
This woman with a past.
This woman with a past is quite engaging
In plays by Mister Henry Arthur Jones
We look at her with streaming eyes;
We very deeply sympathize
When she relates her sins in melting tones.
Now I've a past of quite another color;
In humble walks of life my lot was cast;
I've nothing sinful to confess
I've been too well-behaved, I guess,
The woman with an ordinary past.

II
There's no poetic charm
In living on a farm,
If you can't be lured away by some Lothario.
The girl who sticks at home,
With villains does not roam,
She can never break into a real scenario.
I've not endured the tragic woes
Dealt out by men in evening clothes;
What chance have I to head the cast?
I have no spotted past.
The woman with a past is fascinating
She enters and the others fade away,
But one who's led the simple life
Till she becomes a lawful wife
Cuts mighty little figure in a play.
I ran a boarding house till I was thirty
Connected with a bank account at last;
No need of taking up your time;
I've not committed any crime —
I'm sorry, but I haven't got a past.

III
I've never learned as yet
To smoke a cigarette
Or to wear a gown that's very much deco/le-tay.
I don't know how to drape
My simple western shape
In a clinging gown of most expensive quality.
I've got a man I call my own;
I leave all other men alone;
My reputation you can't blast;
I haven't any past.
The woman with a past gets in the papers
With pictures of the men that she has known,
But one without her first divorce
Has not a claim on fame, of course;
The scandal sheets all leave her quite alone.
Her life is quite devoid of all excitement;
She never sets the social world aghast;
Oh, pity the unhappy lot
Of one whose life's without a blot —
The woman with an ordinary past.