To make their souls at the last busy day
Meet at the grave and make a little stay.
Bone and bracelet will be worshipped as relics—the relics of a Magdalen and her lover. He conjectures with a quiet smile:
All women shall adore us, and some men.
He warns his worshippers, however, that the facts are far different from what they imagine, and tells the miracle-seekers what in reality were "the miracles we harmless lovers wrought":
First we loved well and faithfully,
Yet knew not what we lov'd, nor why;
Difference of sex no more we knew
Than our guardian angels do;
Coming and going, we
Perchance might kiss, but not between those meals;
Our hands ne'er touch'd the seals,
Which nature, injur'd by late law, sets free:
These miracles we did; but now, alas!
All measure, and all language, I should pass,
Should I tell what a miracle she was.
In The Funeral he returns to the same theme:
Whoever comes to shroud me do not harm
Nor question much
That subtle wreath of hair that crowns my arm;
The mystery, the sign you must not touch,
For 'tis my outward soul.
In this poem, however, he finds less consolation than before in the too miraculous nobleness of their love:
Whate'er she meant by it, bury it with me,
For since I am
Love's martyr, it might breed idolatry,
If into other hands these relics came;
As 'twas humility
To afford to it all that a soul can do,
So, 'tis some bravery,
That, since you would have none of me, I bury some of you.