Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). A Victorian Anthology, 1837–1895. 1895.

Hartley Coleridge 1796–1849

“Multum Dilexit”

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SHE sat and wept beside His feet; the weight

Of sin oppress’d her heart; for all the blame,

And the poor malice of the worldly shame,

To her was past, extinct, and out of date:

Only the sin remain’d,—the leprous state;

She would be melted by the heat of love,

By fires far fiercer than are blown to prove

And purge the silver are adulterate.

She sat and wept, and with her untress’d hair

Still wip’d the feet she was so bless’d to touch;

And He wip’d off the soiling of despair

From her sweet soul, because she lov’d so much.

I am a sinner, full of doubts and fears:

Make me a humble thing of love and tears.