Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). An American Anthology, 1787–1900. 1900.
By Benjamin DionysiusHill895 To St. Mary Magdalen
M
After its queen, the nearest, dearest thou:
Yet the aureola around thy brow
Is not the virgins’—thine a throne apart.
Nor yet, my Saint, does faith-illumined art
Thy hand with palm of martyrdom endow:
And when thy hair is all it will allow
Of glory to thy head, we do not start.
O more than virgin in thy penitent love!
And more than martyr in thy passionate woe!
Who knelt not with thee on the gory sod,
How should they now sit throned with thee above?
Or where the crown our worship could bestow
Like that long gold which wiped the feet of God?