Hope, last of all the angels, left the three
Who with their woman’s courage watched Christ die;
But Hope, when she had fled,
Returned to plant in them one humble flower,
The thought that in His grey sepulchral bower
They three might strew around the Dead
The alms of one adoring sympathy,
And pray a last good-bye.

They sped in silence, but the sharp-fanged doubt
Lurked in the path to mock their pungent store
Of spices, hissing, “Nay,
Ye cannot reach the Tenant of that gloom.”
But when the dawn and they retouched the tomb,
They found the stone was rolled away,
And He, their Life who died, now stood without,
Alive for evermore.

Thus when we seek our buried innocence
With bitter myrrh and grey-leaved rosemary,
And writhing doubts delay
Our steps towards the tomb of our desire,
Do Thou, O Lord, our musing eyes inspire
To see the stone is rolled away,
And find that self has thrown its grave-clothes hence
And risen to live free.