W. Garrett Horder, comp. The Poets’ Bible: New Testament. 1895.

Mary Magdalen

Jeremiah Joseph Callanan (1795–1829)

TO the hall of the feast came the sinful and fair;

She heard in the city that Jesus was there;

She marked not the splendour that blazed on their board,

But silently knelt at the feet of her Lord.

The hair from her forehead, so sad and so meek,

Hung dark o’er the blushes that burned on her cheek;

And so still and so lowly she bent in her shame,

It seemed as her spirit had flown from its frame.

The frown and the murmur went round through them all,

That one so unhallowed should tread in that hall;

And some said the poor would be objects more meet

For the wealth of the perfume she showered at his feet.

She marked but her Saviour, she spoke but in sighs,

She dared not look up to the heaven of his eyes;

And the hot tears gushed forth at each heave of her breast

As her lips to his sandals she throbbingly pressed.

On the cloud, after tempests, as shineth the bow,

In the glance of the sunbeam, as melteth the snow,

He looked on that lost one—her sins were forgiven;

And Mary went forth in the beauty of heaven.