Tixall Poetry/The Expostulation of St Mary Magdalen

by unknown author

The Expostulation of

St Mary Magdalen.

 

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  As grief-enthraled Magdalen
  Beheld him on the fa tall tree,
  Amaz'd she stood; her spirit then
  (Returned from passion's extasie)
With interrupting sighs she vents,
And brekes aloud into thees sad laments.—

  Is this the goodly worke in me
  You so commended as you fed?
  Is this the happy mistery
  I blindly wrought upon thy head?
  In powring precious oyle on thyne,
That thou shouldst showre more precious blood on myne?

  Is this the peace thou gav'st my hart?
  Is this the victory I winne,
  For cheusing thee, the better part?
  Is this the pardoning my sin?
  Did my eyes wash thy feet t' intice
Thy bleeding feet to wash my blood-shott eyes?

  Oh take thy blood and pardon back:
  Restore the teares and sinnes I lost:
  To me hell's dearer for thy sake,
  Then heaven at so deare a cost:
  Though my sight ran astray, is't meet
My wandring eyes should draw thy weepeing feet?

  And have thees springs forgot to keepe
  Their floodgates ope? What mountain stopps
  Their currents, that they dare not weepe
  With thee? Without thos corrall dropps,
  Thees christall waves can be no sea;
Without thees perles, that blood no Erithre.

  But Thou, who with thy powrefull word
  Couldst draine that Ruddy Ocean dry,
  And bid the rock full brookes afford
  In such a wildernesse as I;
  Oh stop that ocean of blood,
And turn my rocky brest into a flood.

  Methinkes, in midst of all thy smart,
  I heare thee cry thou thurst'st for me;
  Then (wounded hart) speke to this hart,
  That's sick to death as well as thee;
  Speke to this hart, my soûles Phisician,
And it will yeeld us waters of Contrition.

  By this the tempest of her sighs
  Had all her pregnant sorrow seas'd:
  She clos'd her lypps, and op't her eyes;
  She wrung her hands, and beat her brest;
  She wayling tore her golden haires,
And spake the rest, more eloquent, in teares.