How old was Mary out of whom you cast So many devils? Was she young or perhaps for years She had sat staring, with dry eyes, at this and that man going past Till suddenly she saw You on the steps of Simon’s house And stood and looked at You through tears. I think she must have known by those The thing, for what it was that had come to her. For some of us there is a passion, I suppose So far from earthly cares and earthly fears That in its stillness you can hardly stir Or in its nearness, lift your hand, So great that you have simply got to stand Looking at it through tears, through tears Then straight from these there broke the kiss, I think You must have known by this The thing, for what it was, that had come to You: She did not love You like the rest, It was in her own way, but at the worst, the best, She gave you something altogether new. And through it all, from her, no word, She scarcely saw You, scarcely heard: Surely You knew when she so touched You with her hair, Or by the wet cheek lying there, And while her perfume clung to You from head to feet all through the day That You can change the things for which we care, But even You, unless You kill us, not the way. This, then was peace for her, but passion too. I wonder was it like a kiss that once I knew, The only one that I would care to take Into the grave with me, to which if there were afterwards, to wake. Almost as happy as the carven dead In some dim chancel lying head by head We slept with it, but face to face, the whole night through-- One breath, one throbbing quietness, as if the thing behind our lips was endless life, Lost, as I woke, to hear in the strange earthly dawn, his “Are you there?” And lie still, listening to the wind outside, among the firs. So Mary chose the dream of Him for what was left to her of night and day, It is the only truth: it is the dream in us that neither life nor death nor any other thing can take away: But if she had not touched Him in the doorway of the dream could she have cared so much? She was a sinner, we are what we are: the spirit afterwards, but first, the touch.