I look upon this raiment that I wear,
These silks, and these embroideries, and
they seem

Only as cerements wrapped about my
limbs !

I look upon these rings thick set with pearls,
And emerald and amethyst and jasper,
And they are burning coals upon my flesh!
This serpent on my wrist becomes alive!
Away, thou viper! and away, ye garlands,

He stands beside her bed! He takes her Whose odors bring the swift remembrance

hand!

Listen, he speaks to her!

CHRISTUS, within.

THE CROWD.

back

Of the unhallowed revels in these cham

bers!

But yesterday, and yet it seems to me

Maiden, arise! Something remote, like a pathetic song
Sung long ago by minstrels in the street,
But yesterday, as from this tower I gazed,

See, she obeys his voice! She stirs ! She Over the olive and the walnut trees
lives!

Her mother holds her folded in her arms!
O miracle of miracles! O marvel!

IX

THE TOWER OF MAGDALA

MARY MAGDALENE.

Companionless, unsatisfied, forlorn,
I sit here in this lonely tower, and look
Upon the lake below me, and the hills
That swoon with heat, and see as in a
vision

All my past life unroll itself before me.
The princes and the merchants come to

me,

Merchants of Tyre and Princes of Damas

cus,

And
pass, and disappear, and are no more;
But leave behind their merchandise and
jewels,

Their perfumes, and their gold, and their
disgust.

I loathe them, and the very memory of them
Is unto me as thought of food to one
Cloyed with the luscious figs of Dalmanu-
tha!

What if hereafter, in the long hereafter
Of endless joy or pain, or joy in pain,
It were my punishment to be with them
Grown hideous and decrepit in their sins,
And hear them say: Thou that hast brought
us here,

Be unto us as thou hast been of old !

Upon the lake and the white ships, and

Are ye deceived? Have any of the Rulers Simon, somewhat have I to say to thee. Believed on him? or do they know indeed

This man to be the very Christ? Howbeit

We know whence this man is, but when the Master, say on.

They having naught to pay withal, he frankly

Forgave them both. Now tell me which of them

Will love him most?

He most forgave.

SIMON.

Hasten across the desert to receive me ;
And sweeter than men's voices are to me
The voices of these solitudes; the sound
Of unseen rivulets, and the far-off cry
Of bitterns in the reeds of water-pools.
And lo! above me, like the Prophet's arrow
Shot from the eastern window, high in air

He, I suppose, to whom The clamorous cranes go singing through
the night.

O ye mysterious pilgrims of the air,
Would I had wings that I might follow

you!

I look forth from these mountains, and be-
hold

The omnipotent and omnipresent night,
Mysterious as the future and the fate
That hangs o'er all men's lives! I see be-
neath me

The desert stretching to the Dead Sea shore,
And westward, faint and far away, the
glimmer

Of torches on Mount Olivet, announcing
The rising of the Moon of Passover.
Like a great cross it seems, on which sus-
pended,

With head bowed down in agony, I see
A human figure! Hide, O merciful heaven,
The awful apparition from my sight!

And thou, Machærus, lifting high and black
Thy dreadful walls against the rising moon,
Haunted by demons and by apparitions,
Lilith, and Jezerhara, and Bedargon,
How grim thou showest in the uncertain
light,

Woman, thy faith hath saved thee! Go in A palace and a prison, where King Herod peace!

Feasts with Herodias, while the Baptist

John

Fasts, and consumes his unavailing life!
And in thy court-yard grows the untithed

rue,

Huge as the olives of Gethsemane,
And ancient as the terebinth of Hebron,
Coeval with the world. Would that its

leaves

Medicinal could purge thee of the demons
That now possess thee, and the cunning fox
That burrows in thy walls, contriving mis-
chief!

Music is heard from within.
Angels of God! Sandalphon, thou that
weavest

The prayers of men into immortal garlands,

And given thee weary knees? A cup of And then, foreseeing all thy life, I added :