REDEMPTION. 199
Voluptuous with couches, crimson screens, With hangings, fringes, cornices and frieze, And floors with cunning marquetry inlaid, The splendid garniture of lustful pride. Here Mary, surnamed Magdalen, abode, When e'er caprice, or satiate desire, The o'erstrain'd senses clogg'd, with vain delights, At Herod's court. A high born Jewish inaid'n, She, a sensual beauty, frail as fair, Virtue had barter 'd for those transient joys, Which on the Tetrarch's train seductive hung Of friv'lous youths; or, at Magdala, fed The flames of her inordinate desires; Where, cloth' d in tissues, wrought with silk and gold, She plied lascivious wiles on those who saw, And hung upon her smiles; or, skill'd in song, With lute and harp, beguiled the fleeting hours; Or, crown'd with garlands, bacchant led the dance, Her golden tresses sporting in the breeze, As coy she fled, or bold advanced to meet, Who follow'd in the train, thus wanton led. Altern capricious, sad, as gay before, Oft melancholly wove its baleful spell, And sudden dash'd her evanescent bliss. For sev'n bad spirits, Asmodai the chief, Long time possess'd her, as the lustful sev'n, Whom Sara wed, nor ceased till fishy fumes, By Tobit raised, dislodged the spright, and drove Him from his prey; or, as the son of Cis, Whom oft familiars held, till Tsai's son, With pastoral harp and song, charm'd them away. Some fame of Jesus Magdalen had heard;
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