Oh needful thing, Oh Mary's choice,
Go not from us away!
Oh Jesus, with the living voice,
Talk to us every day!
II.
Not now the living words are poured
Into one listening ear;
For many guests are at the board,
And many speak and hear.
With sacred foot, refrained and slow,
With daring, trembling tread,
She comes, in worship bending low
Behind the godlike head.
The costly chrism, in snowy stone,
A gracious odour sends;
Her little hoard, by sparing grown,
In one full act she spends.
She breaks the box, the honoured thing!
See how its riches pour!
Her priestly hands anoint him king
Whom peasant Mary bore.
* * * * *
Not so does John the tale repeat:
He saw, for he was there,
Mary anoint the Master's feet,
And wipe them with her hair.
Perhaps she did his head anoint,
And then his feet as well;
And John this one forgotten point
Loved best of all to tell.
'Twas Judas called the splendour waste,
'Twas Jesus said—Not so;
Said that her love his burial graced:
"Ye have the poor; I go."