| W. Garrett Horder, comp. The Poets’ Bible: New Testament. 1895. | | | | Mary Magdalen | | George Herbert (1593–1633) |
| | | WHEN blessed Mary wiped her Saviour’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 | 5 |
| With pensive humbleness would live and tread: | |
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| She being stain’d herself, why did she strive | |
| To make him clean, who could not be defiled? | |
| Why kept she not her tears for her own faults, | |
| And not his feet? Though we could dive | 10 |
| In tears like seas, our sins are piled | |
| Deeper than they, in words, and works, and thoughts. | |
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| Dear soul, she knew who did vouchsafe and deign | |
| To bear her filth; and that her sins did dash | |
| E’en God himself. Wherefore she was not loath, | 15 |
| As she had brought wherewith to stain, | |
| So to bring in wherewith to wash: | |
| And yet in washing one, she washed both. | | | | |
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