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. ON CAUCASUS Lo, Crimean marble-quarries tower Colder even than snow-peaks in their power, To the very heart stone-white: And the Christian captives strain On the hillsides in their pain, As they toil for Trajan day and night. Who is this who comes with stirless brow, And sweet eyes that never could allow Rebels save upon their knees? Through the hills a voice is fanned That Pope Clement hath been banned Straightly to the marble Chersonese. Toiling with his people ’mid the rocks, On a streamless slope, the quarried blocks He compels to whiteness clear. There a bitter cry is made Of the thirst that, unallayed, Dreams of well, or freshet, or wide mere.