Scenes and Hymns of Life, with Other Religious Poems/Mary Magdalene Bearing Tidings of the Resurrection

by Felicia Hemans

For other versions of this work, see Female Characters of Scripture. XV. Mary Magdalene Bearing Tidings of the Resurrection.

XV.

MARY MAGDALENE BEARING TIDINGS OF THE RESURRECTION.

Then was a task of glory all thine own,
    Nobler than e'er the still small voice assigned
To lips, in awful music making known
    The stormy splendours of some prophet's mind.
    "Christ is arisen!"—by thee, to wake mankind,
First from the sepulchre those words were brought!
    Thou wert to send the mighty rushing wind
First on its way, with those high tidings fraught—
"Christ is arisen!"—Thou, thou, the sin enthralled,
Earth's outcast, Heaven's own ransomed one, wert called
    In human hearts to give that rapture birth:
    Oh! raised from shame to brightness!—there doth lie
    The tenderest meaning of His ministry,
Whose undespairing love still owned the spirit’s worth.