To St Mary Magdalen

  
  FOR few nights' solace in delicious bed
    Where heat of lust did kindle flames of hell,
    Thou nak'd on naked rock in desert cell
Lay thirty years, and tears of grief did shed.
But for that time thy heart there sorrowed
    Thou now in heaven eternally dost dwell,
    And for each tear which from thine eyes then fell,
A sea of pleasure now is rendered.
If short delights entice my heart to stray,
    Let me by thy long penance learn to know
How dear I should for trifling pleasures pay;
       And if I virtue's rough beginning shun,
Let thy eternal joys unto me show
       What high rewards by little pain is won. 		Constable is alluding to a passage from the seventh chapter in the gospel of Luke which has been traditionally linked to Mary Magdalen, "...she has washed my feet with her tears...".

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Henry Constable (1562-1613)

  
 
   

created by Heather C. Milligan