Marie Magdalene
George Herbert, 1633
When blessed Marie wip’d her Savior’s feet,
(Whose precepts she had trampled on before)
And wore them for a jewel on her head,
Showing his steps should be the street
Wherein she thenceforth evermore
With pensive humbleness would live and tread:
She, being stain’d her self, why did she strive
To make him clean, who could not be defil’d?
Why kept she not her tears for her own faults,
And not his feet? Though we could dive
In tears like seas, our sins are pil’d
Deeper than they, in words, and works, and thoughts.
Dear soul, she knew who did vouchsafe and deign
To bear her filth; and that her sins did dash
Ev’n God himself: wherefore she was not lothe,
As she had brought wherewith to stain,
So to bring wherewith to wash:
And yet in washing one, she washed both.
