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| THREE 1 women crept at break of day | |
| Agrope along the shadowy way | |
| Where Joseph’s tomb and garden lay. | |
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| With blanch of woe each face was white, | |
| As the grey Orient’s waxing light | 5 |
| Brought back upon their awe-struck sight. | |
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| The sixth-day scene of anguish. Fast | |
| The starkly standing cross they passed, | |
| And, breathless, neared the gate at last. | |
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| Each on her throbbing bosom bore | 10 |
| A burden of such fragrant store | |
| As never there had lain before. | |
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| Spices, the purest, richest, best, | |
| That e’er the musky East possessed | |
| From Ind to Araby-the-Blest, | 15 |
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| Had they with sorrow-riven hearts | |
| Searched all Jerusalem’s costliest marts | |
| In quest of,—nards whose pungent arts | |
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| Should the dead sepulchre imbue | |
| With vital odours through and through: | 20 |
| ’Twas all their love had leave to do! | |
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| Christ did not need their gifts; and yet | |
| Did either Mary once regret | |
| Her offering? Did Salome fret | |
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| Over the unused aloes? Nay! | 25 |
| They counted not as waste, that day, | |
| What they had brought their Lord. The way | |
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| Home seemed the path to heaven. They bare, | |
| Thenceforth, about the robes they ware | |
| The clinging perfume everywhere. | 30 |
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| So, ministering as erst did these, | |
| Go women forth by twos and threes | |
| (Unmindful of their morning ease), | |
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| Through tragic darkness, murk and dim, | |
| Where’er they see the faintest rim | 35 |
| Of promise,—all for sake of him | |
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| Who rose from Joseph’s tomb. They hold | |
| It just such joy as those of old, | |
| To tell the tale the Marys told. | |
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| Myrrh-bearers still,—at home, abroad, | 40 |
| What paths have holy women trod, | |
| Burdened with votive gifts for God,— | |
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| Rare gifts, whose chiefest worth was priced | |
| By this one thought, that all sufficed: | |
| Their spices had been bruised for Christ! | 45 |
