AN alabaster box,
A tomb of precious stone—
White, with white bars, as white
As billows on a sea:
With spaces where some flush
Of sky-like rose is conscious and afraid
Of whiteness and white bars.
A lovely sepulchre of loveliest stone,
This alabaster box—
Coy as a maiden’s blood in flush,
White as a maiden’s breast in stretch,
Alive with fear and grace;
Transparent rose,
Translucent white;
A treasury of precious stone,
A strange, long tomb....
’Twas Maximin, who had this casket made,
The holy Maximin, who travelled once
With Mary Magdalen, and preached with her;
Till on a wind as quiet
As it had been a cloud,
She was removed by Christ to dwell alone.

Alone she dwelt, her peace
A thought that never fell
From its full tide.
Ever beside her in her cave,
A vase of golden curls,
A clod of blooded earth.
And when she died at last, and Maximin
Must bury her;
Being man and holy, in his love
He laid her in an alabaster box,
As she had laid her soul’s deep penitence,
Her soul’s deep passion, a sweet balm, within
An alabaster box:
So Maximin gave Magdalen to God—
Shut as a spice in precious stone,
In bland and flushing box
Of alabaster stone.
And knowing all her secrets, Maximin,
Being man and holy, laid within
The priceless cave of alabaster two
Most precious, cherished things—
A vase of curly hair,
A vase of golden web;
A clod of withered soil,
A clod of blooded earth.

The curls were crushed together in gold lump,
Crushed by the hand that wiped
The Holy Feet, kept in a crush of gold,
Just as they dabbed the sweetly smelling Feet—
The curls enwoven by the balm they dried,
Knotted as rose of Sharon, when the winds
Sweep it along the desert.... Curls, of power
To float the charm of Eve in aureole
Round her they covered, till she crushed them tight
To dab the Holy Feet, and afterward
Be severed from their growth,
Stiff in their balm and gold;
A piece of honeycomb in rings and web;
Sweetness of shorn, gold, unguent-dabbled hair,
A handful in a vase.

The clod, a bit of hill-turf dry;
The turf that sheep might pull up as they graze;
Or men might throw upon the fire
At sundown when the air is loosed and cold:
A clod an eagle might
Ascend to build with, or a goat
Kick down a valley’s side;
A clod dark-red
As if it mothered ruby of the mines.
The hand that gathered it one hollow night
Gathered it up red-wet from Golgotha.
Three crosses lay about the grass—
Such arms and shafts of crosses on the grass!—
When she, who gathered, crept
Among the prostrate arms;
Roused a great death-bird from the ground,
And, in its place,
Bent down and pressed her lips where it had couched,
And lifted up the ground to press her heart;
And went her way, hugging the Sacred Blood
As in a sponge of turf,
That dried about the treasure, now grown hard,
As if it mothered ruby of the mines—
A clod of blooded soil.

O Relics of the Holy Magdalen!
The balmy hair her plea,
God’s Blood her grace:
Within a vase her gift,
Within a turf-clod His—
Her relics, by her corpse;
All she had cared to keep,
Through hermit years of life,
To bless her in her tomb
Till Judgment-Day.