Christina Rossetti's 'Song for All Maries'

The philopoetic Kevin Edgecomb was so good as to send me a wonderful poem by the grand dame of the Pre-Raphaelites, Christina Rossetti (1830-1894), on the subject of St Mary Magdalene. I had planned to add it to a post on the Western image of St Mary as a penitent, but in the end I deemed it more in keeping with the Orthodox St Mary Magdalene the Myrrh-bearer. Unfortunately, I don’t know how to reproduce on Blogger the nice format in which he sent the poem (undoubtedly reflecting the way it is printed). But here is the text anyway:

A Song for all Maries

Our Master lies asleep and is at rest:
His Heart has ceased to bleed, His Eye to weep:
The sun ashamed has dropt down in the west:
Our Master lies asleep.

Now we are they who weep, and trembling keep
Vigil, with wrung heart in a sighing breast,
While slow time creeps, and slow the shadows creep.

Renew Thy youth, as eagle from the nest;
O Master, who hast sown, arise to reap:—
No cock-crow yet, no flush on eastern crest:
Our Master lies asleep.

Christina Georgina Rossetti
Before 1891.