William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. (1878–1962). Anthology of Magazine Verse for 1920.
To Other Marys
C
The morning that he rose from death, calm and free of pain;
The wounds in his hands and his side no longer burned him.
He that once had been a man was a God again.
Christ said, “Mary,” as he walked within the garden.
All in his triumphing, back from the dead,
With the wind upon his cheek, while the world was new to him,
“Mary” was the first name he ever said.
And saw her walking with the maids of Galilee;
—She stood beside a clumsy-nailed cross above a hillside,
And saw the babe on it she had held at her knee.—
Christ praised another Mary whom the saints rebuked for wastefulness;
For he understood them well, all Marys of his day,
Yes, and of today, too, Marys staid and caring,
Marys wild and home-loving—it was his way.
Martha and Lazarus, of crops and folk and wars;
But while the food was cleared away, low by the doorstep
It was Mary spoke to him, when there were stars.
Not of crops and gossip, not of work and neighbors—
Christ and Mary talked about the wishing to be good
And the easy falling, and the new beginnings,
And the way the moon looked, low above the wood.
Startled, Mary Magdalene raised her tear-stained face.
That was very long ago, in a far-off country,
In a far-off country, and a foreign place.
Still each year at Easter-time do we think again of her,
And the other Marys who. are dead in the earth,
Who are dead long ago, but who loved and tended him
When our Lord was a man, and felt of tears and mirth.
Mary Schwartz, and Mary Brown, and Mary Rosenstein,
Little Mary Donnelly, Mary Holt and Mary Hull,
Mary Olsen, Mary Morse, all in a line.
Since it is the Easter-time, and little bells are ringing,
Let us walk in still pride, with lifting of the head,
For when he had risen from the grave, as all the world knows,
“Mary” was the first name that God ever said.