An Inscription

Precious the box that Mary brake
Of spikenard for her Master's sake,
But ah! it held nought half so dear
As the sweet dust that whitens here.
The greater wonder who shall say:
To make so white a soul of clay,
From clay to win a face so fair,
Those strange great eyes, that sunlit hair
A-ripple o'er her witty brain,--
Or turn all back to dust again.

Who knows--but, in some happy hour,
The God whose strange alchemic power
Wrought her of dust, again may turn
To woman this immortal urn.