POETRY: Marie Magdalene by George Herbert

When blessed Marie wiped 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 stained 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
In tears like seas, our sins are piled
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 loath,
As she had brought wherewith to stain,
So to bring in wherewith to wash:
and yet in washing one, she washed both.