Poem March 8, 1947 Issue

In the Pharisee's House

KATHRINE H. WILLIAMS

Mary's heart was like a frightened bird
Snared in the underbrush of shame and sin
When Jesus' quick, illuminating word
Unloosed it from a dark indiscipline.
Who knows the healing Christ, himself, like her.
Presents this gift with reverential tears:
A grateful heart whose fragrancies will stir
Along each common day, along the years,
In kindly acts all unconcerned with cost,
In love that serves and only asks the letting,
Nor fears that any worthy thing is lost
By such abandonment, such vast forgetting
Of self. Ah, Judas, had Mary's coins been kept
To give the poor, there still were many a tear;
And she discerned no poor that need be wept,
Since Christ had come to save—since Christ was here!