Then Mary, her fair face like morning, white With pureness not with pallor, spoke and said: "It was not hope, nor faith--both faith and hope Had died within us when our Master died-- Not hope, not faith, but love, and memory, And sorrow, and desire to testify Our sense of everlasting debt to Him, That, early in the morning of the day Third following the day wherein He suffered, Brought me--with Mary, James's mother, joined-- Likewise Salomé, to the garden where They had laid Him in a rock-hewn sepulcher. We took sweet spices to embalm the flesh Which late for robe the Lord of life had worn. We wondered as we went, 'But who will roll The great stone back for us that closes up The doorway to the tomb?' Yet went we on, To find the stone already rolled away; For there had been a mighty earthquake throe, And a descended angel of the Lord With easy strength in his celestial grace Had rolled away the stone, and on it sat. His aspect was like lightning, and snow-white His dazzling vesture shone. The keepers shook, The keepers that the Jewish rulers set To watch the grave--these for sheer terror shook And sank into a helpless swoon like death. But unto us that awful angel said: "Ye, fear not; for I know ye come to seek Jesus the crucified; He is not here, For He is risen according to His word. Come, see the empty place where the Lord lay." "I heard and saw with a bewildered wit; And though I afterward remembered all, I did not at the moment understand Well anything save that the sepulcher Was empty of the body of the Lord. This I told the disciples, sorrowing: I ran to tell them, and they, running, came To find it so as I had made report. Those went away, perplexed and sad at heart: But as for me, I lingered by the tomb And wept; I could have wept my heart away. I thought: 'And so I may not even anoint-- There would be comfort, something like a sense Of healing to that holy wounded flesh, If I might salve those dead wounds with sweet spice-- I may not even anoint His body dead! They have taken it away, I know not whither. Alas, alas, and woe is me!' My tears Were falling like a shower of rain the while, But I stooped weeping, and with veiled eyes looked Into the open sepulcher and saw Two angels sitting there, vested in white, One at the head, the other at the feet, Where late the body of the Lord had lain.