The Feast of St. Mary Magdalene (July 22)
Hair like heather, you hasten, the Harrower
seeking in the sorrowful scenery of
the tombs, towering in terror over torch’d
earth. In earnest errand you were not errant,
but bravely believed, and that beyond the bare
attachments of the apostles, whose asphodel
fame was fallow till fiercely your fleet feet
met them, melancholy men, to mollify
with wisdom’s words of weal for the woe-wounded:
the glorified gard’ner, in Garden’s glory,
lives e’er to laud and be not lightly lauded.
They ran and ran to rend your rest, restive rubes,
and for their faithless fickleness found the forlorn
cloths: your clarion credit is not just Christ
meeting, but making known to miser mortals.