Mary Magdalen

And now my path was on a public road,
And where I walk'd methought the weary air
Was full of lamentations; for the sick
Lay on the roadside basking in the sun,
The leper with his sores, the paralysed
Moveless as stone, the halt and lame and blind,
And many beggars pluck'd me by the sleeve,
And when I fled shriek'd curses after me;
And my tears fell, and my knees knock'd together,
And I fled faster, crying: " That first curse
Still darkens all! Oh, City Beautiful,
Where art thou? — for these ways are sad to tread."